Vforthern 

Neighbors 



Wilfred T G renfell 































NORTHERN NEIGHBORS 






















GOING THROUGH THE BIG DROGUE 




V ' 

Northern Neighbors 

Stories of the Labrador People 

BY 

j 

WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL 

M.D. (OXON.), C.M.G. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




Boston and New York 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Tffot Cambridge 

1923 








COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED . 



®fje 33UUetst&e JJtcsSfi 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 


AUC 27 '231 

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©C1A711645 




PREFACE 


“ Where can I find that story of the ‘Copper 
Store’?” was asked me one day. 

“You can’t get it; it’s out of print.” 

“Well, why not reprint it?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know.” 

Conference with the publishers revealed that 
they did not know either. 

The latest science teaches us that Nature 
conserves everything; not only matter, but 
energy. A number of new stories which had 
been graded as worth telling needed a medium 
for materialization. Man is nothing if not imi¬ 
tative. There seemed no valid reason why we 
should not copy man’s great teacher in con¬ 
servation and, like history, repeat anything 
that might be of interest or value. Hence, this 
book, Northern Neighbors , has become the re¬ 
quired vehicle to meet the wishes of many 
friends of Labrador and its fisherfolk. 

Not only “The Copper Store,” but “Off 
the Rocks,” “That Bit o’ Line,” “Little 
Prince Pomiuk,” “Reported Lost,” “Johnny,” 


Preface 


“Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier,” and “Green 
Pastures” are reprinted from the volume en¬ 
titled Off the Rocks , first published in 1906. 

W. T. G. 

July, 19£3 






CONTENTS 


Off the Rocks 1 

“That Bit o’ Line 15 

Little Prince Pomiuk 25 

The Copper Store 40 

On the Rocks 61 

Johnny 76 

Reported Lost 87 

Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 102 

Paddy 116 

Ghosts 134 

Green Pastures 152 

Two Night Watches 164 

The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 185 

The First Frost of Winter 202 

Above the Big Falls 211 

St. Anthony’s First Christmas 261 

Sou’west by West 274 

Deeds of Derring Do 309 




















ILLUSTRATIONS 


Going through the Big Drogue Frontispiece 

Winter Traveling 52 

Shoeing Dogs 106 

Looking for Leads 166 

The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 198 

The Grand Falls in Winter 212 

Roasting a Porcupine 234 

Accommodation for Tourists 262 







NORTHERN NEIGHBORS 

• • 

OFF THE ROCKS 

It was Saturday night in the early fall when 
in our hospital schooner we anchored among 
Adlavik Islands. A number of vessels were 
there “making” the fish, which they had 
caught farther north. Many of them had called 
to pick up their freighters, or poorer folk, who 
had to come down to the Labrador fishery 
for a living, and yet had been too poor to 
get credit to purchase a schooner of their 
own. They had therefore taken passage on 
some already crowded craft, in return paying 
twenty-five cents to the master for every 
quintal or hundredweight of fish they should 
catch during the summer. 

Among these, lying close beside us at anchor, 
was a small vessel, labeled on the bow the 
Firefly, though if ever in her early days she 
had possessed any claim to display the fascina- 

1 


Northern Neighbors 

tion of her namesake, there was nothing about 
her to betray it now. As I walked on the deck 
of our well-appointed little ship, I could not 
help feeling a real sorrow for any man who 
had to wrest a living from the North Atlantic 
in a craft so terribly ill-fitted for the purpose. 

Her hull was obviously the rude design of 
some unskilled fisherman, and was innocent of 
any pretension to paint. It was probably the 
devoted work of the skipper, the father of a 
family of boys, who no doubt had helped him 
in that one great step towards an independent 
living — the ownership of a schooner. Curves 
and fine lines are difficult to obtain, and, com¬ 
pared with our graceful hull, this poor little 
craft looked merely a bunch of boards. Our 
planks and timbers were of stout oak and were 
all copper-fastened. Our humble neighbor’s 
were of the local soft wood, no doubt from the 
Bay in which he lived, and were held together 
with galvanized iron nails, at the very best. 
Her masts and spars of local spruce compared 
poorly indeed with ours of staunch Norwegian 
pitch pine. Her running gear was obviously 

2 


Off the Rocks 

old, and even her halyards were spliced in 
many places. Our stout canvas sails made the 
Firefly’s old patched rags of canvas look in¬ 
sufficient indeed to face the October gales she 
was sure to encounter before she once more 
reached her harbor far away to the southward. 
Her small deck space, crowded as usual with 
barrels and casks and fishing boats, suggested 
that if by any chance a sea came over it, it 
would go hard with the ship and all aboard 
her. But there was something even more dis¬ 
tressing about her; she was evidently “clean” 
betwixt decks — that is, she had “missed the 
fish,” and the poor skipper was going home to 
face a winter in which little or nothing could 
be earned, yet without money to purchase a 
winter’s food, and still less to devote to the 
many needs of his plucky little craft. If she was 
ill-fitted this year, what would she be next? 

Churches as we conceive them are “ beyond 
the reach ” of the summer fleets “ down north,” 
but perched in many a barren island harbor on 
the Labrador is some substitute that serves 
— some fish store regularly prepared each 

3 


Northern Neighbors 

week-end for its Sunday, or even some special 
house solely devoted to “any kind of religious 
service/’ Ashore was a little building devoted 
to “meetin’s,” which had been the labor of 
love of one or two poor fishermen “who loved 
the Lord.” It was built of chopped upright 
sticks, the chinks between had once been 
stogged with moss, and the rough hand-sawn 
boards that formed the roof had once been 
made water-tight with rinds of birch bark. 
The floor had always been the native heath — 
that is, pebbles — and the seats were narrow, 
unedged, chopped boards, seriously rickety 
for want of good nails. Death had claimed 
one of the builders; the other had gone to 
the “ States.” 

That Sunday was a really raw Labrador fall 
morning, cold, sunless, and dispiriting. None 
of the craft sailed, and no work was done, as 
is our wont in Labrador, yet it did not look 
as if we could expect much of a gathering to 
“heartily rejoice in our salvation,” for nearly 
every craft was “light-fished,” the season was 
almost gone, and “t’ merchants” had fixed a 

4 


Off the Rocks 

low price for fish. But the skipper of the Fire¬ 
fly upset all our calculations. For not only was 
he up betimes 44 getting a crowd,” but his own 
exuberant joy showing out through his face — 
yes, and his very clothing — was so contagious 
that the service went with a will. Indeed, this 
mere fisherman, ignorant and unlearned like 
his Galilean forebears, radiated that ultra 
material thing, 44 the Spirit which quickens,” 
bringing into our midst that asset without 
which orthodoxies, ornate rituals, and cere¬ 
monies are not only dead, dut destructive. 

This man made the best of everything. He 
moved the topply seats so that they were 
steadied by the outside walls, and arranged 
the congregation on the weather side of the 
building, so that their broad backs might 
serve to block the drafts out from the chinks. 
He apologized for remaining defects by saying 
that the holes above 44 will do to let ’em hear 
the singing in the harbor.” Afterwards, as we 
walked down to our boats, I spoke to him of 
his poor luck with the fish. 

“ I shall have enough for the winter, thank 

5 


Northern Neighbors 

God,” he told me. He meant dry flour enough 
not to starve. 

The whole fleet got under way at daylight, 
for all were anxious to get south. Soon after 
midday, we reached a harbor where we wished 
to see the settlers. The barometer had fallen 
a good deal during the day, and there was a 
lowering look about the sky and an ominous 
feeling in the air. So we put out two large 
anchors with a good wide spread, and buoyed 
them as well. The harbor was none too good 
if the sea came in from the eastward, and a 
sullen ground swell hinted of something be¬ 
hind the present light air. By sundown the 
little air had fallen to a flat calm, but the swell 
had increased, and the barometer was still 
lower. We knew we were in for a storm, so we 
gave sixty fathoms on each chain, and got out 
our big kedge on the rocks with a hundred 
fathoms of good stout hawser to it. It was 
almost dark, when we saw in the offing a small 
schooner being painfully towed into the harbor 
by some men in a rowboat. The calm outside 
had left her helpless. Inky blackness shut 

6 


Off the Rocks 

everything out long before she rounded the 
heads, but to our great relief we at last heard 
her a little way ahead let go first her port 
and then her starboard anchor. Evidently her 
skipper, whoever he might be, was aware of 
what was threatening; we were glad to have a 
companion, anyhow. 

Soon after midnight it began to rain, and 
then, with scarcely any warning, the wind 
struck us. Everything loose was instantly 
blown away, but as there was yet little sea and 
we always kept an anchor watch so late in the 
year, we did not stir from our bunks and soon, 

as far as I was concerned, I was fast asleep 

• 

again. It was hardly daylight when I was 
awakened by men talking eagerly in the cabin. 
The motion of our ship told me at once that 
the sea had risen considerably, though we 
rode easily to our anchors. The rain was pelt¬ 
ing in torrents, or the flying spray falling on 
deck, one could not tell which. 

“What’s the matter, Joe?” I shouted to 
our mate, whose voice I could distinguish. 
“Anything gone wrong?” 

7 


Northern Neighbors 

At the sound he put his head in at my cabin 
door. His oilskins were shining with water, 
and his hair was dripping also. 

4 ‘The schooner ahead of us is drifting, 
Doctor. It’s the one came in after us last 
night.” 

“Drifting! How’s the wind?” 

“Right into the harbor, sir. There is noth¬ 
ing but a watery grave for their crowd if she 
goes ashore. The breakers are halfway up the 
cliffs.” 

It didn’t take long to get into sea-boots and 
oilskins, and join the rest of the crew, who 
were on deck before me, watching the schooner. 

“She’s only riding to one anchor, Joe, isn’t 
she?” I knew he could see in the dark like a 
cat. 

“Sure enough, sir. She must have parted 
her other cable in the night. She looks a poor 
little craft. I expect her holding gear is none 
too good.” 

We were sheltering under the weather cloth 
in the after-rigging. It was still scarcely dawn, 
and the murky sky, over which endless clouds 

8 


Off the Rocks 

were scudding, looked cold and dishearten¬ 
ing. The roar of the breakers against the cliffs 
behind us seemed to have a hungry sound, as 
if they were greedily anticipating the death 
knell of the poor souls on the slowly drift¬ 
ing schooner. 

“ There are women aboard, aren’t there, 
Joe?” 

“Yes, sure,” he said, “and children, too. 
’Tis a small freighter, bound home.” 

As we spoke we could see the deck getting 
more crowded, evidently with people coming 
up from the cabin. 

“There’s thirty or forty of them if there’s 
a man, Doctor!” the mate shouted above the 
storm. “I guess they’re going to try the boats 
if it comes to the worst. They might as well go 
down in the vessel. They’d never put to wind¬ 
ward in this wind.” 

Meanwhile the schooner was getting nearer 
to us, though as the wind was blowing then 
she would pass at least fifty yards to the 
south’ard of us. It grew a little lighter as we 
watched. The schooner was riding to the full 

9 


Northern Neighbors 

scope of her chain, and seemed, like some live 
thing, to be making a desperate effort to save 
herself and the human souls she was responsible 
for. As the larger swells came along she would 
plunge almost bow under, and then rise and 
shake herself of her enemy before he struck 
her again. Casks and barrels and hetero¬ 
geneous lumber of every sort had all been 
thrown overboard to free the decks, and were 
even now being pounded to atoms on the rocks 
astern. It seemed only a matter of time before 
all on the devoted little schooner would share 
the same fate. 

“Joe, that’s the little schooner that lay near 
us last night?” I asked at last. “I’m sure 
that’s her stern.” 

“It’s the Firefly, as I live, Doctor. If the 
wind canted ever so little, we might pass them 
a line,” he said, hoarsely. “We can only fail, 
at worst. I’ll be glad to make one in the boat 
to try.” 

“You’ll do nothing with the lifeboat, Joe. 
She’s much too heavy. It must be the jolly- 
boat, and she’s poor for a night like this.” 

10 


Off the Rocks 

There was no time to be lost. Volunteers 
were plentiful for the four places in the boat. 
Who ever knew a deep-sea fisherman to hang 
back when life was to be saved? 

The boat was manned as much as possible 
under the shelter of our own hull and a long 
fine line coiled in the stern, to which we at¬ 
tached the end of our stout double-twisted 
wire hawser. A second line attached to the 
boat was to act as a life-line in case anything 
went wrong. 

“God give you strength, boys/’ was all we 
could say as they stood to their oars, ready to 
make a dash to windward. 

The crazy wind seemed to howl down with 
extra violence as the men bent to the oars, and 
a fierce sea, rising up, hurled the bow oars out 
of the rowlocks, and drove the boat some 
precious yards astern. The tail of it, topping 
over the boat’s rail, set the cox to bailing for 
all he was worth. Again the bow oars were 
shipped, and those herculean backs, toughened 
by years of contest with nature in her angry 
moods, were straining every sinew to hold their 

11 


Northern Neighbors 

own. Now they would gain a little, now lose it 
again. Again an oar would be unshipped, and 
again the boat half filled with water. They 

t 

were edging away to the southward, but mak¬ 
ing no headway. It soon became obvious that 
they couldn’t get to windward. At best they 
could only hold their own, and if their strength 
failed, or an oar broke, it became a question if 
we should be able to get them back. If only 
the wind would cant a little, there was still a 
chance, but to expect that seemed absurd. 

We soon perceived that the men on the Fire¬ 
fly had seen the boat, and had at once taken in 
the situation. A small waterbreaker was im¬ 
mediately emptied, lashed to the end of their 
log line, and flung over the side. The schooner 
was now nearly abeam of us, and riding not 
more than four hundred yards from the rocks 
under her stern that spelled death to every 
soul aboard her if she touched. Everything 
would be decided in a few seconds now. Even 
our lads couldn’t stand the strain much longer. 
I think that, could we have read them, some 
of their thoughts were in little homes ashore 

n 


Off the Rocks 

just then. I know that I was thinking of 
wives and children — 

But just then a wonderful thing happened. 
The empty cask was coming appreciably 
nearer to the boat. Were they making way? 
No, not an inch. They were still astern of our 
counter, which they had left, it seemed, ages 
ago. Surely it isn’t a change of wind! Our 
wind-vane on the masthead hadn’t budged an 
inch. No, it was just a flaw of wind on the 
water — a flaw, but oddly enough just in the 
nick of time! Almost unable to speak for ex¬ 
citement, we saw that our boys in the boat had 
noticed it. What would we have given at that 
moment to have been able to lend a hand in the 
boat! It must be now or never. They saw this 
also, and with one supreme effort our noble 
lads had seized the moment, and bent every 
ounce of strength to the oars. 

If cheering could have been heard in the 
howling wind, we could have cheered ourselves 
speechless as we saw the bow man drop his 
oar, lean over, and heave the cask into the 
boat. In less than half a minute the line was 

13 


Northern Neighbors 

detached, fastened to the line coiled in the 
stern, and the Firefly’s men were hauling it in, 
while our boat still had her work cut out to 
make the ship once more. The wire hawser, 
carefully paid out, was soon through the Fire¬ 
fly’s hawsepipe and fast around the mainmast 
itself. In less than a quarter of an hour she 
was riding behind our ship. True, her keel 
was only a few feet from the rocks as she rose 
and fell on the mountainous swell, but the 
line was trustworthy, and we ourselves were 
anchored “sure and deep.” 

And so, when the storm was over, and our 
friends of the Firefly came on board, I don’t 
know which of us was the most grateful, the 
saved or the saviours. It was only a pot of 
tea, without sugar, and salt tub butter which 
graced our humble table! It was only a crowd 
of men in coarse clothing, with sea-boots and 
blue guernseys in place of broadcloth and 
patent leathers, but I know that all our hearts, 
as we gathered around to thank the Giver of 
all good gifts, were full of a joy not to be pur¬ 
chased with dollars. 


14 


“THAT BIT O’ LINE” 


“Heave her to, skipper, and tell Jim to throw 
the boat out. I’m going to board that steam 
trawler; I see she has her gear down.” 

This was to the skipper of the North Sea 
Mission vessel in which I was at the time 
working among the deep-sea fishermen of the 
Dogger Bank. 

“She’s going fast, Doctor; do you think we 
shall catch her?” 

“Run out a Spudger on the mizzen gaff; 
she’ll come around then. She’s a stranger to 
our fleet, I see.” 

“I think she joined us in the night; must 
have mistaken the lights, I suppose. The 
Short Blue Fleet passed through our weather- 
most vessels last night, and she’s a Short Blue 
vessel.” While he was speaking he had been 
hauling out our broad tri-color “Bethel” flag 
to the gaff end. It usually signals to the fleet 
for service, but hung on the gaff end it means 
“want to speak to you.” The strange trawler 

15 



Northern Neighbors 

blew her whistle in answer and evidently put 
her helm over, for she commenced to make a 
circle round us as nearly as her great net, 
sweeping over the bottom, permitted her. 

“Who’s the skipper of her, do you know?” 
I asked, handing the glasses to our captain. 

“Can’t say I do, Doctor; but him they call 
Fenian Jack had her once. It’s the old Al¬ 
batross — you know her, I’m sure.” 

“Well, let’s have two good hands in the 
boat; we shall need them in this lop.” 

The trouble in boarding a trawler at sea is 
that she cannot stop to allow you to come 
alongside, and it is always hard to go along¬ 
side a vessel that is under way, even in smooth 
water. However, it is a faint heart that never 
won, and no man can accuse a deep-sea fisher¬ 
man of that. We were soon aboard and the 
big-bodied and big-hearted fisherman on the 
bridge was shouting out: 

“What cheer-oh! Come up on the bridge. 
Mind the warp there. Go down below, you 
lads, and get a mug o’ tea. You’ll find the cook 
in the galley.” 


16 


That Bit o’ Line 

The grip the skipper gave me as I mounted 
the bridge left no doubt that there was a man 
behind the hand that gave it. Strangers though 
we were, we were soon good friends, for the 
skipper was a typical deep-sea man, with the 
absence of self-consciousness so delightful in 
men of the sea. Generosity, indeed, becomes 
almost a fault with them, and is often the 
cause of their being absolutely unable to say 
“no,” just because “no” means hurting the 
feelings of some comrade who perhaps is ask¬ 
ing them to enter, say, a saloon that they have 
promised the wife to keep out of. 

Chancing to look up, I saw a man sitting in 
a sling about halfway up the funnel, which he 
was leisurely chipping preparatory to repaint¬ 
ing it. On looking more closely at the man 
on the funnel I thought I noticed something 
familiar about him, more especially the head 
of red hair. 

“That’s never you, Dick, is it?” The red 
head turned around, and now I saw there 
could be no doubt about it, for the laughing 
countenance was ablaze with freckles. “Why, 

17 


Northern Neighbors 

man alive, I thought you were drowned last 
New Year’s!” 

“So did I, Doctor. And ’deed so I was, till 
the crew of the old Europa pumped the water 
out of me.” 

“Come and tell us a yarn as soon as you are 
through with the funnel. I’m mighty glad to 
see you in the fleet again.” 

The watch was roused at eight bells, and 
after Dick had enjoyed a scrub in a bucket 
on deck I followed him below. The steward 
had spread out for all of us some steaming 
bowls of tea, which seemed to have driven 
the thoughts of the promised yarn out of my 
friend’s red head, till I broke in: “ Come along, 
Dick, let’s hear how it is you’re still above 
water.” At last, as if he had already forgotten 
all about it, and when he had lighted his pipe 
to assist his memory, he began: 

“It was last New Year’s Day, Doctor. We 
was in the old Sunbeam on the tail end o’ the 
Dogger. The wind was in the nor’northeast, 
and there were a nasty lop heaving along from 
overnight. ’Deed it was so bad the admiral 

18 


That Bit o’ Line 

didn’t show his flags for boarding fish on the 
cutter.” 

Under our regulations if any loss of life oc¬ 
curred from throwing out a boat to try to 
transfer fish to the carrier, it meant a charge of 
manslaughter against the skipper of the vessel 
who sent his men. But the temptation to a 
skipper to do so is great, because the worse 
the weather and the fewer boats that send 
their fish to the market, the higher will be 
the returns for those that do send. More¬ 
over, the young fellows are recklessly cour¬ 
ageous and don’t care to show the white feather 
when ordered to go in the little boat to ferry 
fish. 

“ Our skipper ordered the boat out, as we had 
a big haul, and me and Sam and Arch took her. 
It was pretty bad alongside the steamer among 
the other boats. She were shipping the lop over 
both rails as she rolled in the trough o’ the sea. 
I never saw such a crowd knocked off their 
pins by loose boxes, and rolled into the water 
in the scuppers in my life. Almost every one 
got a cold bath on deck before they were 

19 


Northern Neighbors 

through with it. However, our boat got clear 
all right at last. It was snowing at the time and 
looked dirty to wind’ard, so we were for getting 
aboard again as soon as we could. I suppose 
we must have been a bit careless, now we were 
clear of that heavy lot o’ fish. For I was just 
standing up shouting ‘A happy New Year and 
many of ’em’ to the Sunbeam’s boat, when a 
curly sea caught us right under the quarter 
and turned us clean upside down. I grabbed 
hold of something hard, and found myself 
holding on to the thwart. Only it was pitch 
dark, for I was clean under the boat. There 
was air enough, as we had tipped over like a 
trap, but it were awful cold hanging in the 
water. I knew it weren’t much good holding 
on there, so I just grabbed the gunwale, and 
hauled myself outside. I had to go right under 
water for it, and I can’t swim a stroke. But 
somehow I came up all right and caught the 
life-line which is rove through the keel, and 
out I climbed on the bottom. 

“ Archie was there already, but Sam had 
gone, and I guess he was dead by then. The 

20 


That Bit o' Line 

driving spray kept us from seeing to windward, 
and we knew that was the only way help could 
come. We were half dead with cold, for the old 
boat was level with the water and pretty nigh 
every sea went over us. Arch soon gave up 
and his head went down on the boat’s bottom. 
I kept shouting to him, ‘For God’s sake keep 
up a little longer,’ for I could see a smack 
shaking up into the wind ahead of us, and I 
guessed they had seen us and were getting out 
their boat. 

“Just then an extra big sea came along and 
washed us both off, me still holding on to 
Arch’s oil frock. All I remember was striking 
out and finding something was holding me up. 
I had come up right through the life-buoy ring. 
I’d hardly had time, however, to cough up 
some of the water I’d swallowed when I felt 
something tugging at me, and then it pulled 
me right under water again. The life buoy was 
fastened to the stern of the boat by a half-inch 
hemp line, and every time a sea came along 
the old boat sogged down under water and 
dragged me with it. 


21 


Northern Neighbors 

“ Then it flashed across my mind what would 
happen. If I didn’t cut that line and get loose, 
the same sea that would bring the boat for me 
would find me under water, even if I wasn’t 
drowned before that. I felt in my pocket for 
my fish knife — I couldn’t have opened it if I 
had it. I knew it wasn’t there, for I could re¬ 
member leaving it on the capstan after clean¬ 
ing the fish. ’Deed, it seemed I could re¬ 
member everything I ever did. Then I felt 
the tugging again, and down I went. It 
weren’t the fault o’ the life belt. It was just 
that bit o’ line. All I could do was to get it in 
my teeth when I could and chew at it. But it 
was no good; I couldn’t cut adrift, try as I 
would. 

“Then suddenly I saw the boat coming. It 
got nearer and nearer. I could see some one 
leaning over the bow to grab me, and then I 
felt the old tugging again, and down I went 
under water. It was just as I had thought it 
would be. As I looked up through the water 
I saw the boat rush past over my head, and I 
knew, once it was to leeward, it could never 

22 


That Bit o’ Line 

get back to me. Then I lost consciousness. 
Of course, they went on and told every one I 
was lost. But I suppose the Lord hadn’t done 
with me yet. For soon after, the steam carrier 
came along, and saw the boat, and then saw me 
still fast in the life buoy. They picked me up, 
and after a couple of hours rubbed life into me 
again. So here I am, you see.” He stopped 

and sucked strenuously at his short clay pipe 

• 

as if the telling had been an effort. 

Surely God’s ways are not ours. Here in this 
unexpected way he had put into my mouth a 
subject that would be sure to interest the little 
company that gathered in the strange trawler’s 
after-cabin. When the meal was over and the 
pipes alight again, while the cook-boy washed 
up the last remains of the meal, I produced 
my pocketful of hymn-books and proposed to 
sing. With a ready response, such as sailors 
generally make to such a proposal, we launched 
out into “one with a chorus.” The various 
members of the crew chimed in with the near¬ 
est tunes they knew, so that it was a cheerful 
noise together that ascended the hatchway. 

23 


Northern Neighbors 

Owing to the vigor displayed it reached the 
man at the wheel, and even he couldn’t resist 
joining in as he steered the ship. The life buoy 
and its lessons served as a subject all could 
understand. 


LITTLE PRINCE POMIUK 

“ Whatever is that schooner bound south for 
at this time of year, skipper? ” I asked a fisher¬ 
man who had just come aboard the mission 
ship with a “kink” (a sprain) in his back, as I 
looked up and saw a large, white-winged vessel 
bowling along to the south’ard with every inch 
of canvas spread to the spanking breeze. “ Her 
decks seem as crowded as if they were Noah’s 
Ark.” 

He looked at her for a long time, and then 
replied in his deliberate way: 46 1 guess, Doctor, 
that that’s the Yankee what’s been down 
north after some Huskies. What does they 
do with ’em. Doctor, when they get ’em?” 
he asked in a tone of voice that implied 
that they might be going to make them into 
sausages. 

“Why, put them in a cage, like a lot of 
monkeys, and get people to pay ten cents a 
head to look at them,” I replied. “ They are 

25 


Northern Neighbors 

going to the World’s Fair, and it’s very lit¬ 
tle good the poor souls will get there. The 
Moravian Brethren at the Mission station 
have tried all they can to prevent their going, 
but they make such big promises that the poor 
creatures think they will never have to work 
again — and that’s true, unless they work in 
heaven, for most of them will never come back 
to the Labrador.” 

“Well! May God keep ’em,” he replied 
reverently. 

The schooner soon disappeared over the 
horizon, and with her vanished from our minds 
all thoughts of her unfortunate occupants. 

The Eskimo encampment at the World’s 
Fair was a popular sideshow. Sightseers of 
every sort crowded in to see the “Eskimos 
from Labrador,” just as they did the jumping 
elephants or the Ferris wheel. 

Most popular among them was a little boy 
— son of a chief from the north whose name 
was Kaiachououk; the “trippers” liked him 
especially for his merry laughing manner, his 
striking dark face, jet black hair, and far- 

26 


Little Prince Pomiuk 

away, deep brown eyes. Active as a squirrel, 
rejoicing in the strength of youth that had been 
perfected by a life in God’s out-of-doors, he 
would make the enclosure ring with the crack 
of his thirty-foot dog whip and the buoyancy 
of his merry laughter. Many a nickel was 
thrown in, that little Prince Pomiuk might 
show his dexterity with the weapon which not 
a single grown man in all the crowd could 
wield. He could make the coin dance on the 
ground as his whirling lash fell on it from 
thirty feet away, with a loud crack that 
eclipsed the rifle shots from the shooting 
gallery hard by. It would seem that there was 
no more popular figure in all that vast ex¬ 
hibition than this child of the far north. There 
was certainly no one more light-hearted in all 
that throng than little Prince Pomiuk, of the 
Labrador Eskimos. 

At that time the shadow of the evil days to 
come had not yet fallen on him, and with boy¬ 
ish unconsciousness of all that the city in 
summer was costing a constitution only ac¬ 
climatized to the Northern frost, no one was 

27 


Northern Neighbors 

enjoying more than he “all the fun of the 
Fair.” 

But among the masses of sightseers, for 
whom these humble folk were only as the at¬ 
traction of a Roman holiday, was a man no 
longer young; a man who, in the prime of 
life, had given of his best years for the dwell¬ 
ers of those very “regions beyond,” from which 
the child had been lured. 

Though still young enough to enjoy the 
countless attractions and appreciate the educa¬ 
tional opportunities of the many exhibits from 
the ends of the earth, it was yet only a veritable 
call from the wild that had brought this one 
man all the long way to the Fair from his New 
England home. 

There were sure to be some children of North 
Labrador. God would permit him the joy once 
again of giving in his own person yet another 
message to them. For many years he had been 
able to serve them only as one of the Lord’s 
remembrancers, his health having forced him 
to return from his chosen work forty years 
previously. 


28 


Little Prince Pomiuk 

Day after day this privileged man had the 
opportunity of visiting the Eskimos — day 
after day he reveled in the enjoyment of it. 

The good days for Pomiuk, however, went 
all too quickly, and then came a day when his 
friend found him in one of the dark huts, lying 
on a bed of sickness. An injury to his thigh had 
ended by the insidious onset of disease of the 
hip joint, and the merry child had already 
commenced the living agony of the victim of 
tuberculosis. 

A little later the Exhibition closed, and the 
poor Eskimos commenced their long journey 
to their far-off northern fortresses. Alas! the 
promises of wealth and personal conduct home 
were never realized, and the remnant of them 
straggled back as best they could, penniless 
and unfriended. 

During the whole of the following winter the 
little party to which Pomiuk belonged was ice¬ 
bound on the northeast coast of Newfound¬ 
land. Here they passed a tolerable time in a 
house kindly loaned them by a Christian post¬ 
master. Alas, Prince Pomiuk could only 

29 


Northern Neighbors 

hobble about on a pair of crutches, and play 
with Evelina, a little girl born at the Exhibition. 

However, this waif of the Northland still 
lived in the heart of his friend of the Exhibi¬ 
tion. He sent after the boy letter after letter, 
till he heard that the ice of winter had once 
more gone and the sea was again open to the 
plucky fishermen, who ply their hazardous 
calling even among the eternal ice floes of the 
Arctic seas. 

On one of these adventurous craft little 
Pomiuk had once more begun his wanderings, 
and it seemed as though again he had dis¬ 
appeared into the unknown. Letters failed to 
reach him, and no answers came from the 
silent north. It seemed indeed as if the Lord 
of the children had forgotten this “ little one,” 
and his friend Mr. Martin was sad of heart. 

Meanwhile Pomiuk had reached as far 
north as the entrance to Hudson Bay. His in¬ 
creasing sufferings had made it impossible for 
the band to take him farther that year. The 
good Brethren of the northern Moravian 
station of Hamah had there done what they 

30 


Little Prince Pomiuk 

could to help him, and but for their kindness 
he would not have lived the winter through. 

Meanwhile our new hospital steamer, which 
had met with such terrible disaster the pre¬ 
vious year, had been put in repair once more. 

The long tow to St. John’s had been safely 

* 

managed through the skill and courage of the 
captain, and in June of 1895 we again steamed 
out through the Narrows on our journey 
“down north.” This year we determined to 
carry out our great desire to push as far north 
as the farthest family of white settlers, wher¬ 
ever that might be. 

Late in the summer we found ourselves off 
the entrance to that marvelous ravine in the 
vast mountains of the north named Naknak. 
Over the frowning cliffs two thousand feet high 
hung heavy banks of sea fog, hiding their 
jagged peaks, and roofing the weird opening 
as if it were the fearsome entrance to some 
grim ogre’s cavern. Our lead found no bottom 
when we tried to sound it. There were breakers 
thundering on hidden reefs across the opening, 
and as these were not on the chart we were 

31 


Northern Neighbors 

doubtful if this was really the entrance we 
were searching for. 

However, by cautious pushing ahead we at 
last found ourselves between lofty naked walls, 
the tops hidden in wet fog; pushing on, we de¬ 
tected light streaming in from above, and 
found ourselves, as it were, in an endless ravine, 
closed behind us by a great black gate. Cau¬ 
tiously we crept along till it was dark. We 
were now twenty miles from the entrance, and 
uncertain what to do, for we were still unable 
to get bottom for an anchorage. Yet we knew 
we might run ashore in the dark if we did not 
bring up. 

At last the watch sang out, “Light on the 
starboard bow.” The night was still. The 
sound of our steamer whistle echoed and re¬ 
echoed in endless cadences between the mighty 
cliffs. 

Then three rifle shots rang out in answer, 
followed a little later by a boat bumping into 
our quarter in the darkness as we lay drifting 
on the quiet surface of the fjord, and a hearty 
Englishman jumped over our rail. 

32 


Little Prince Pomiuk 

“Who on earth are you?” he asked, “and 
however did you get here? The hospital ship, 
eh? I’ve heard of her from the captain of the 
Erik.” The Erik was the steamer of the Hud¬ 
son’s Bay Fur Company, that comes once a 
year to take the catch of fur home to market; 
and this was George Ford, their agent, who, 
with his family, had for twenty years lived 
alone at the bottom of this seemingly terrible 
fjord. During the evening, which we spent to¬ 
gether, our friend told us that the Eskimos 
were nearly all away hunting, but that one 
group, still farther up the fjord, had with them 
a dying boy. 

It was like looking for a needle in a hay¬ 
stack to search for a tiny tent no bigger than 
one of the boulders that lay in thousands at the 
feet of those stupendous cliffs. Next morning, 
however, we climbed a high promontory and 
searched the shores of the inlet carefully with 
our glasses. There it was, sure enough, nest¬ 
ling in near the mouth of a distant mighty tor¬ 
rent that was rushing headlong down the cliffs. 

“Get out the jolly-boat!” We now had our 

33 


Northern Neighbors 

bearings of the camp, and were soon peeping 
into the little skin “tubik,” or tent, of an 
Eskimo family. 

Sitting on a heap at one end of the tent, 
covered with deerskins, was an Eskimo woman 
with two tiny girls, while lying on the stones of 
the beach that served for a floor lay a naked 
boy of about eleven years, his long jet-black 
hair cut in a straight frieze across his forehead, 
his face drawn with pain and neglect, his 
large, deep, hazel eyes fixed wonderingly on us 
strangers. He didn’t move, even when I spoke 
to him, for his hip was broken as well as dis¬ 
eased. A man called Kupah was the owner of 
the tent. The little boy was Pomiuk. 

While he was at the Fair his father, Kaia- 
chououk, had been treacherously murdered 
by a man called Kalleligak. His mother had 
married again and was away across the moun¬ 
tains. She had taken with her the rest of the 
family. 

“All we can do, Mr. Ford, is to take the 
child back with us. It would be kinder to give 
him a lethal draught than to leave him to suf- 

34 


Little Prince Pomiuk 

fer here. See what Kupah says about giving 
him to me for good.” 

Mr. Ford explained to Kupah that we were 
good medicine men, and wanted to make the 
child well; that he would be no use fishing, 
and indeed was only a hindrance now. As I 
watched him narrowly to see what fate awaited 
Pomiuk, I saw him, in the true Eskimo style, 
shrug his shoulders and say “Ajauna mat,” 
the equivalent of 44 It can’t be helped,” or 44 Do 
as you like.” 

Having put Pomiuk to sleep we carried him 
to Mr. Ford’s house on an improvised stretcher. 
Here he was washed and dressed, and as we 
steamed south again the child, wrapped in a 
big white bearskin, was lying on the deck, 
following with his large pathetic eyes every 
movement of these strangers. 

Only one treasured possession he had when 
he came to us besides his naked body. It was 
a letter we had received for him from the 
Hudson’s Bay agent, which had come from 
Pomiuk’s friend of the World’s Fair, Mr. 
Martin of Andover. In it was his photograph, 

35 


Northern Neighbors 

and when I showed it to Pomiuk he said 
simply: “Me even love him.” So a letter was 
sent back to the address given, and three 
months later came an answer. 

“Keep him,” it said. “Don’t let him be 
lost again. I am a poor man myself, but if you 
will look after the child, I will pay all ex¬ 
penses.” 

As our steamer traveled south, visiting the 
harbors along the way, the heart of one 
of the brave Moravian missionaries, Brother 
Schmidt, was touched for the lonely child, and 
he gave him a little concertina to play. This 
served to while away many a weary hour till 
at length Pomiuk could play several simple 
tunes. Among these was a hymn he had 
learned at Ramah. It ran thus: “Takpanele, 
Takpanele, Merngotorvikangilak,” — “Up in 
heaven, up in heaven, there shall be no sorrow 
there.” He would sing it for us as his health 
improved, accompanying himself, and ending 
always with his merry laughter when he noticed 
the men on deck were stopping to listen to 
him. 


36 


Little Prince Pomiuk 

Out in the Atlantic, on an island, two hun¬ 
dred miles north of the Straits of Belle Isle, 
we had built one of our little hospitals. Here 
we left Pomiuk until in November we had to 
move him up the long bay. For only there are 
trees, which give some shelter from the terrible 
blizzards that make life on the outside islands 
impossible in winter. 

During this winter a visiting clergyman saw 
fit to baptize the boy and gave him as a token 
the additional name of Gabriel — the angel of 
comfort. 

I had to go home to England that winter, 
but in spirit I was often in Labrador. On my 
return almost the first sound to welcome me 
was the child’s joyful laughter as he told me, 
“ Gabriel Pomiuk, me.” He had hung out of 
his window a Red Cross flag, tied on the end 
of his crutch when he heard our ship was in the 
offing once more. He was just crying with joy 
when we came tramping up the stairway. 

As a true Christian should always be, Po¬ 
miuk was happy all the day long, and the tenor 
of his letters to his far-off friends in America 

37 


Northern Neighbors 

is expressed best in his frequent interpolations 
of “ me very laughing,” till at last he wrote 
also, “Me walk with crutches now, me very 
glad.” His affectionate little nature always 
made him end with “Aukshenai (good-bye), 
Mr. Martin, very much.” 

It was a lovely thing to see this stray child 
of the Northland blossom out into the simple 
Christian graces. He had many gifts sent him 
from American boys and girls. These he loved 
for their own sakes at first, and treasured 
closely. But soon he learned to love better the 
sharing of them with other crippled friends that 
from time to time found their way into the 
hospital. His busy fingers, too, put into models 
of dog sleighs and kajaks (canoes) the affec¬ 
tion in his heart for all those who were kind to 
him. 

One day came a letter from the hospital at 
Battle Harbor, where Pomiuk then was. It 
told how he had been seized with a kind of fit 
and kept in bed all the week, at times lapsing 
into unconsciousness. On Sunday night he 
asked for a verse of his favorite hymn: 

38 


Little Prince Pomiuk 

% 

“Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light, 
Like a little candle burning in the night; 

In this world of darkness we must shine, 

You in your small corner, and I in mine.” 

On Monday morning he went quietly home. 
In a sheltered hollow in our tiny graveyard 
where others weary and worn had also been 
laid, lies the little body of this true Prince, and 
on the resting-place is carved his new name, 
Gabriel, which means “God’s man.” 

That night the mysterious aurora made 
bright the vault of heaven, its banners gleam¬ 
ing like the festal illuminations of some royal 
city. The simple children of the Northland call 
it “the spirits of the dead at play.” But 
the doctor-in-charge wrote me that to him it 
looked a shining symbol, telling that another 
young soldier had won his way to the palace of 
the King. 


THE COPPER STORE 

There could be no two minds about Tom 
Sparks. It was no trouble for him to work. 
His keen, active mind fired with energy his 
strong, well-built body. He was the true 
type of a Newfoundland fisherman — medium 
height, broad-shouldered, with a frank open 
face betokening no little will power. 

It was his greatest delight to be first on the 
fishing grounds, and he was ever the last to 
leave when a “spurt o’ fish” was running. In 
the dark before dawn in our harbor, when the 
air is as sweet as sugar and the silence almost 
unearthly, it used to be Tom’s footfall on the 
rocks and the sound of Tom stepping into his 
boat that heralded the activity of the coming 
day. Yet many a time you could see the tiny 
light twinkling away in Tom’s fishing stage, 
as he finished splitting the last half quintal, 
when there was not another light in the harbor. 

Tom was a “ snapper fisherman,” and if any 
boat in the harbor got a load it was as certain 

40 


The Copper Store 

as daylight that Tom’s punt did not go home 
empty. 

“ I wants to get ahead, Doctor,” he used to 
say. “ And then, please God, I’ll build a bigger 
boat, a schooner, maybe, one o’ these days. 
No man can’t be sure o’ getting a winter’s diet 
with only a cross-hand skiff to work in.” 

It was all the more surprising, therefore, 
that one day when I was sitting in his little 
cottage he should come in suddenly, throw his 
cap impatiently on to the settle, and, sitting 
down, bury his face in his hands. 

“I ain’t got a bit o’ heart to work, Sal,” he 
said to his wife. “ It don’t seem to matter what 
yer catch is, yer get nothing for it. Them 
as gets none is just as well off as them that 
catches plenty. Why should ’em make us pay 
for what dey loses on others?” And I could 
see, in spite of his efforts to keep them back, 
the resentful tears standing on his cheeks. 

“ It’s just slaving, dat’s what it is, and seems 
to me the agents down here does just what ’em 
likes wi’ us. There ain’t nowheres else to get 
any supplies from, and they charges us credit 

41 


Northern Neighbors 

prices to make up for them as don’t pay. Even 
when you does settle you’s account dey won’t 
give you no cash, and they ’tices you all they 
can to get more credit.” 

There was nothing to say, for I knew it to be 
too true. The truck system of trade always 
tells against the poor man, and when he is 
ignorant as well, it spells to him nothing better 
than slavery. 

Now, Tom was always careful to “make” 
his fish well. He knew that it meant a deal of 
difference to the price that it was worth if it 
was white and hard, carefully cleaned and 
dried. So like everything else he went at, he 
spared no pains in the curing, and generally 
managed to pass it all as merchantable, which 
is the highest grade possible. On the present 
occasion he had just taken his fish to his 
merchant’s store, and was very well satisfied 
with his success with it. In his mind he almost 
saw the bigger boat he had so long striven for. 
He saw himself seated in it, going out farther 
than ever, “right to the ’offer banks,” and 
then coming home loaded, and the surprise 

42 


The Copper Store 

and joy of his dear wife as he tied up to the 
stage, while he began to “pew” it up with the 
sharp hoe to where it could be split and salted. 
He was a man with an imaginative mind, and 
though he scarcely would have said so, he saw 
also in his vision of those days a time when 
there would always be plenty to eat and drink, 
and unlimited warm clothing for Sal and the 
children. 

So Tom had ferried his fish to the trader’s 
wharf, and thrown it down as the custom is. 
He was full of high hopes, as he watched it 
being culled and speedily enough stored away. 
With not a little pride he had received from 
the storekeeper a ticket of the weight and 
quality of the fish. Then he went up the 
wooden gangway to the store above to get his 
account, and order his winter supplies. The 
storekeeper was very cordial and almost made 
Tom take more goods than he intended. For 
he had determined to be very “close” this 
winter, and to have enough left over for nails 
and iron work and canvas and rope to build 
the new boat. 


43 


Northern Neighbors 

But, like many of the fishermen, Tom had 
had no schooling, and was therefore quite un¬ 
able to read. So when he met a friend outside, 
“who had a tidy bit of laming,” he stopped 
him and asked him to read what was on the 
paper. 

Poor Tom. He could scarcely believe that 
Levi Boyd was reading aright, as he labori¬ 
ously spelled out: “You owes t’ store fifty- 
five dollars.” 

“Me owes t’ store? You’m sure?” 

“Why, certain, boy; ’tis writ plain enough.” 
And then at the sight of the disconsolate face: 
“You wasn’t expecting no balance coming to 
yer, was yer?” 

Tom’s heart was bursting with anger as 
Levi picked out for him some of the prices — 
and exorbitant enough they were. Salt was 
three dollars a hogshead; flour was eight dol¬ 
lars a barrel; molasses was eighty cents a gal¬ 
lon, kerosene thirty cents a gallon — while his 
fish! Well, if the bottom had dropped out of 
the fish market Tom wouldn’t have been more 
surprised. 


44 


The Copper Store 

Burning with indignation, he walked hur¬ 
riedly back to the store, where he met the 
storekeeper, smiling as before. 

“ What’s the matter, Tom, boy? Something 
gone wrong?” 

For reply Tom took out the bill and pointed 
to the figures. 4< ’Tis the prices, sir! Sure they 
be beyant all.” 

“They’re only the usual prices. You can 
see for yourself if you want to look at our 
books.” 

“But the fish were every bit merchantable,” 
he insisted, “and you only gives me credit for 
ten quintals o’ merchantables.” 

“Come, come, I’m sorry if you’re not satis¬ 
fied; but the price of fish has fallen anyhow 
this last week, and I can’t find out now if what 
you say is true, for your fish is all bulked along 
with the rest in the store. You’re too late 
now.” 

What could the poor fellow do more? Might 
was enthroned. He couldn’t get his fish back 
to prove his point, and so had to go home 
broken-hearted and leave things as they were. 

45 


Northern Neighbors 

“No, Sal, it’s no good. Us may as well take 
it easy like others do. Us only has to pay 
them’s debts, if us works e’er a bit harder than 
others.” 

She had seen discontent written in Tom’s 
face before he began to speak, and like a true 
woman had already decided how best to 
counter it, “Come, Tom, ne’er mind, lad, dey 
won’t allers have it all their own way. Dere’s 
One above wat knows all about ’em, and he’ll 
put t’ings right by’m bye. ’Tis no good for 
you’s to fight agin ’em. Dey’s got everyt’ing 
in dey’s own hands. Let’s t’ank God we’m 
got enough for de winter.” 

“Yes, maid; but you knows I wanted to 
build our new boat dis winter, and den next 
spring I’d ha’ caught two fish for one. But 
that’s all over now,” he added. 

“ N’ar mind, Tom, so as us lives. What odds 
about gettin’ on? I suppose that’s not for the 
likes o’ we. Leastways, dat’s what most dem 
t’inks, and I t’inks so, too, now. We’m better 
go on bein’ content as we is.” 

After some time she got Tom quieted down, 

46 


The Copper Store 

and his restless spirit that had been chafing 
under the undefined wrong done him (but of 
which he was quite conscious), was able to 
thank God for what was still left him. 

The next year it seemed as if everything was 
against them. One of our erratic summer 
frosts had nipped their potatoes, and in spite 
of all his efforts, Tom’s catch was small, and 
when he blurted out, “ ’Twas a poor summer. 
Doctor, and I don’t know what we is agoin’ to 
do for de winter,” I could see there was some 
undercurrent of thought in his mind. 

At last I guessed what the great question was. 
What should he do with the fish he had? Should 
he turn it in to the merchant who had fitted 
him out for the summer, or should he sell it pri¬ 
vately and buy some food for the winter else¬ 
where? There were only seven quintals in all. 

Husband and wife sat looking into the fire. 
The house was silent except for the breathing 
of the children. Each knew what the other was 
thinking, for their eyes, roving now and again 
to where the children lay, had met, been low¬ 
ered, and had met again. 

47 


Northern Neighbors 

Tom at length broke the silence. “What 
shall us do, Sal? De children must have some- 
t’ing to eat. I knows the merchant can go 
without better nor we, and de fish won’t pay 
more’n half wo’t we had; and he’s not goin’ to 
gi’e us any more, you bet.” 

“De Bible says, ‘Pay what you owes and 
den trust God for de rest’; but it’s hard to 
see de children starving.” 

“Well, maid, us wants to do de right — but 
it seems to me they allers gets their share out 
o’ we anyways.” 

A silent pause followed; then suddenly Tom 
made his decision: “I reckon I’ll carry t’ fish 
down to Mellon. I’ll tell him how we is off and 
ask him to gi’e us some t’ings for de winter. I 
can’t do fairer nor dat, and den if he don’t, 
why, we must just trust de Lord to feed us, 
dat’s all.” 

So on the morrow he put it all in his boat 
and carried it to the agent, who promptly ac¬ 
cepted it on account and even praised poor 
Tom for his honesty in bringing all he had. 
But when Tom stammered out: “It’s all we 

48 


The Copper Store 

has for de winter,” the agent simply said, 
“I’m sorry to hear that, for there is still a 
balance against you upon our books. I’m 
afraid you’ll have to do the best you can.” 
And then he turned away to speak to another 
man. 

Poor Tom! He could no more ask for mercy 
from this man than he could from the big seas 
— that he so often faced with a lighter heart 
than that with which he now turned home¬ 
ward to greet his wife. But she had antici¬ 
pated the result, and was fully prepared to 
meet him with the most cheerful smiles. “I 
see you has got nothin’, boy. But dere, n’ar 
mind. We has a few potatoes, anyhow, and 
maybe God’ll send somet’ing along.” 

If God had not sent something along, in the 
form of devoted brotherly neighbors, Tom 
and his family would not be living to tell the 
tale, for it was a winter of sore trial. The long 
fall prevented any chance of remunerative 
labor, and the deep snow made work in the 
woods impossible. By Christmas the little 
stock of butter and molasses was exhausted, 

49 


Northern Neighbors 

and for some time they had been on very short 
allowances of flour. At length even that was 
gone, and nothing but a few potatoes and some 
salt herring remained. Even Tom’s strong na¬ 
ture could not stand it long. He grew thinner 
and thinner, and eventually so weak that he 
could scarcely walk. 

The simple, kindly neighbors soon found 
out the cause of his illness; though till then he 
had concealed it from them, for they were 
nearly as badly off in the matter of provisions 
as he was himself. 

The neighbors clubbed together, and by a 
panful from this house and a panful from that, 
two barrels of flour were collected and brought 
to the family. The children could scarcely 
understand the need of so much generosity, 
for all the time the parents had been starving 
themselves the children had never been allowed 
to want, even though there was only flour. 
By the time Tom was nursed back to his 
strength, it was possible to get to work in the 
woods, and in a fortnight, by steady, hard 
work, he had brought out enough logs to pay 

50 


The Copper Store 

for his two barrels of flour, for he was deter¬ 
mined not to be unnecessarily indebted to the 
others. At length the spring days brought a 
little work incident to the return of the fishery, 
and so also a little more food and comfort into 
the home. The long, dreary winter, full of 
trial, hardship, and the truest heroism, was at 
an end. Yet all it seemed to leave in the minds 
of this devoted couple was the thankful mem- 

i 

ory that “de children never wanted all winter, 
t’ank God.” 

Soon after this a meeting of the fishermen 
was held in our harbor and, of course, as it was 
strictly private, it soon leaked out that the sub¬ 
ject was the formation of a cooperative store. 

Therefore I was not surprised to be asked, 
a day or two later, “ Is dat true, Doctor, dat 
you’se be goin’ t’ start a copper store? I 
doesn’t know what dat be.” 

It was a long business explaining to these 
men, born and reared on the truck system, 
that any other way to live was possible. They 
could not stretch their minds to imagine a cash 
basis of trading. 


51 


Northern Neighbors 

Old Uncle Ephraim, who was alleged to 
have “a stocking full o’ t’ings somewheres,” 
rose in the meeting to ask: “Where’ll us get 
salt from int’ spring?” 

“Why, buy it at the store, of course.” 

“You doesn’t mean pay cash for salt, does 
you?” 

“ At this store things must be paid for in cash.” 

“Cash for salt — well, dat’s de limit!” and 
the old man simply collapsed with a woebe¬ 
gone expression on his face. 

Then Uncle Alfred, another of our village 
savants, arose and wanted to know, “What’ll 
us do if it be a bad fishery, Doctor? Where’ll 
us get a winter’s diet?” 

“ The traders don’t give you food or salt for 
nothing; they don’t run a charity,” was the 
answer. “You really pay for all you have. 
Only you pay a great deal more, because you 
pay credit prices, and now the man who does 
well pays for the man who does badly. But 
you can see from the number of traders there 
are that everything is paid for and we really 
do earn enough to live on.” 

52 


JH 



WINTER TRAVELING 






The Copper Store 

It had never occurred to Uncle Alfred that 
he could own real cash and “ tide himself over 
a bad time.” 

These folk are not talkers, and it was diffi¬ 
cult to get them on their feet at all; but the 
burden of the next speech was understood to 
be: “Us reckons t’ Gov’ment’ll have to stand 
t’ it.” 

Another wiseacre chimed in that he didn’t 
see what the Government was for, if it wasn’t 
to keep poor people from starving. The 
Government has been looked upon as a kind 
of inexhaustible supply intended to send along 
unlimited barrels of flour whenever the traders 
would not give a man a winter’s diet, and often 
enough, also, to pay the traders when they had 
given it. It was a milch cow that gave milk 
perennially, and they never realized it had to 
be fed — and by them. 

The only answer possible to these remarks 
was, “If men cannot earn enough to live on, 
then they must get out and try and live some¬ 
where else — or they cease to be men.” 

One doubtful soul suggested, “You says 

53 


Northern Neighbors 

the copper store won’t give us no credit in the 
fall; but perhaps the traders may give us.” 
The answer to this, that appealed to all hands, 
was, “What did Tom get last fall?” — for 
they all loved Tom. 

The crucial point came when old Skipper 
Matt, who had been an over-sea sailor in his 
day and “knowed a thing or two,” asked, “If 
salt is one dollar a hogshead in St. John’s, will 
the store charge two dollars and forty cents 
for it?” When they were assured that they 
would share whatever gain was made, and 
there seemed to be a prospect of reducing the 
prices at present in vogue, all hands voted for 
the “copper store.” 

So the White Bay Cooperative Store was 
formed with thirteen members who were unit¬ 
edly able to allow eighty-five dollars in cash for 
the capital. A queer eighty-five dollars it was, 
too; old enough, some of the silver dollars were, 
and had lain in boxes many a long year till the 
heirs had almost forgotten they were still 
negotiable. Naturally enough we had to in¬ 
vite some outside shareholders, and this we 

54 


The Copper Store 

arranged. In the fall the first consignment of 
goods was sent down. I have a copy of that 
first order now before me as I write. To me it 
is a precious, though a humble document. We 
could not afford a large stock, so we asked 
Uncle Alfred, Skipper Tom and the others 
how much they would expect to pay for with 
fish that they could honestly call their own and 
was not owing to the trader. Alas! some al¬ 
ready owed all they had and more besides, and 
could not begin with the cooperative store 
till the next year, though they all said they 
would live on grass in the spring to avoid hav¬ 
ing to incur debts on credit — and I verily be¬ 
lieve some of them did. When the list was 
completed we found we could order enough 
to carry all hands through the winter and a 
small stock to keep on hand from which those 
who earned money from furs in the winter 
could purchase. 

“How’re us goin’ to get the cooperative 
fish to t’ market?” was a question over which 
there was much shaking of heads and no small 
anxiety of heart, for the traders who had 

55 


Northern Neighbors 

carried it for us before could scarcely be ex¬ 
pected to freight for us now. Then came the 

difficulty of how to pay our debts, because the 

\ 

mails were both infrequent and unreliable, 
and to send cash was out of the question. We 
finally arranged to pay by checks, the three 
members who wrote best signing their names 
on them like a proper finance committee. Few 
though the checks were, this system had to be 
abandoned, as it was a great labor, and when 
the three names were accomplished they had 
strayed ali over the check till the amount was 
almost illegible. So we appointed an agent in 
St. John’s, who also kept all the accounts and 
only sent us copies “ way down North.” 

The next spring would come the crisis with 
the traders, for no one who had joined the 
store would expect to get supplies from them, 
and some could not yet afford to buy from the 
store for cash. None wished it known, there¬ 
fore, who the shareholders were, and every man 
who put in a share had his name in blank and a 
number issued instead on his paper. 

The goods were stored in an old house lent 

56 


The Copper Store 

for the occasion, and there was no external sign 
of the store until we began to see our way a 
bit clear and painted all across the house, 
“ White Bay Cooperative Store.” 

In order to get a photograph of the first 
Labrador cooperators we had to get a group 
of all the able-bodied men together, so that the 
real members were not distinguishable. One 
man had to be known visibly as the manager, 
and for that po§t we chose a promising young 
fisherman who could write. He kept the store 
open only when it was necessary, spending the 
rest of his time fishing like the others. 

Many are the adventures the store met with 
in its career. Its misfortunes were largely due 
to that common failing — lack of wisdom; but 
this has been slowly remedied in the school of 
experience. Before ten years rolled away the 
good results of the store were clearly evident. 
A fine schooner called the Cooperator had been 
added to bring down our goods and take our 
fish to the market. Slowly but steadily the 
store grew in strength, and the men in inde¬ 
pendence. The church, the school, and the 

57 


Northern Neighbors 

houses grew in efficiency and comfort. There 
was not a man in the harbor but had a dollar 
to his name and a dollar in the store as well. 
Half-clad and half-naked children had almost 
entirely disappeared. Three or four other little 
stores had grown up along the shore and were 
small but valuable examples with regard to the 
price of goods. 

At that time Uncle Alfred confided to me: 
“ If ever the store goes down, Doctor, we’ll all 
have to leave White Bay. How did us ever 
do without he?” And Uncle Ephraim, whose 
years were long ago lost in the tale of decades, 
when I asked him if he were sorry his time was 
nearly run out, answered cheerily, “No, no, 
Doctor, not sorry, thank God. The Lord have 
’lowed me to see good times — and some hard 
times, too, praise His name. But at the end 
He have let me see this here copper store, which 
have given many of we folk a chance we never 
’lowed we should live to see come to White 
Bay again.” 

Two decades have nearly passed since the 
store first started, and the store still flourishes. 


58 


The Copper Store 

The Great War has come and gone, and the 
huge advance in prices makes us almost wonder 
that we ever thought the prices of those days 
high. What would we not give to-day for flour 
to be eight dollars and molasses eighty cents! 
War! War! War! It has left its baneful traces 
all the world over. The victors have, as always, 
suffered with the vanquished; and the impov¬ 
erished markets and inflated prices have 
brought ruin to many and hunger and cold 
to the innocent and helpless, way down here. 

The Copper Store still stands, though many 
of its charter members have passed to where all 
men must pass. More than ever it is the one 
safeguard of the White Bay people. Tom, now 
white-haired and no longer able to lead the 
Bay in matters of physical energy, is still, with 
his good wife beside him, a blessing and a boon 
to the village. “ If I want to get a blessing for 
my soul,” said a visiting trader to me not long 
ago, “ I don’t wait for Sunday, I just run up to 
Tom’s cottage and spend a while with the dear 
old couple up there. It’s like a fresh breeze 
from heaven.” Tom is still poor, but he has 

50 


Northern Neighbors 

never known what it was to have to beg his 
bread, even through the hard war years that 
claimed his only son, who “ fell in action,” as 
Tom will fall himself. He told me that 4 4 ne’er 
a cent has been spent in twenty-six years 
for loading or unloading de Copper Store 
Schooner. Not but what some doesn’t do 
their share on times, but you sees, Doctor, 
dis is a real copper store, and de others does 
the job for us and says nothing — so that’s all 
there is to it.” 


ON THE ROCKS 

“Mr. Cyril Martin wants to see you, Doc¬ 
tor,” said a young woman, who was bouncing 
a fat baby in her arms as I stepped out of 
the boat at a little fishing village on the East 
Labrador coast last fall. 

“ Who is Mr. Cyril Martin, and where does 
Mr. Martin live?” 

‘Til show you’se, Doctor,” and without 
further preliminaries I found myself hustling 
along a narrow rocky path to nowhere after 
the pattering young woman, as Alice pursued 
the White Rabbit down the famous hole, 
though the path apparently led into the 
wilderness. No house was to be seen at that 
end of the beautiful inlet that formed the 
harbor. Mr. Cyril Martin seemed to have suc¬ 
cessfully camouflaged his residence, and to 
have sought seclusion for some reason from the 
company of his neighbors. 

Suddenly we brought up opposite a tiny 
studded hut, the roof of which so nearly re- 

61 


Northern Neighbors 

sembled the ground that it had escaped notice. 
My guide disappeared through the tiny door 
without knocking, I following. As I entered 
I tripped up over an obstruction on the floor. 
It proved to be a heap of rags, and lying on it 
a gray-bearded, silver-headed old sailor, who 
was struggling to get up to greet me. A bright¬ 
eyed smiling old lady, clad in a triumph of 
patchwork, rose from a half-barrel stool, with 
a piece of sewing in her hand, and bade me 
welcome with the dignity of a Fifth Avenue 
hostess — there was a refreshing genuineness 
about her greeting. 

“We was sorry to hear you was dead last 
winter, Doctor, and so we was after when they 
said it were only your mother ” — which served 
to start the conversation, though it left me at 
first with the meretricious disadvantage of feel¬ 
ing I must have risen before my time. 

In one corner of this hut, twelve by fourteen 
feet in all, a cubby-hole was boxed off and 
screened with rags, that had evidently served 
their last function in every other capacity. 
The birch-bark rinds of the roofing afforded a 

G2 


On the Rocks 

homely effect even to the tiny shack, but their 
condition suggested unseaworthy antiquity, 
especially under the shadow of a Labrador 
winter. 

It has been my lot to visit many poor homes, 
but this one had something peculiar about it. 
Dire poverty was written only too patently 
over every inch of it. Indeed all the possessions 
of the owners, which were quite in keeping with 
the entourage, lay open to view and told their 
own story of hunger and want. And yet there 
seemed some refinement about it, which left 
one without the usual feeling of resentment. 
Here was poverty — dire poverty, but no 
squalor. The usual repulsive accumulation of 
a thousand remnants that have been saved 
only through the universal desire to own some¬ 
thing was absent. It is common to all human 
grades of society, this sheet anchor to “ things” 
which Margaret Deland satirizes so cleverly 
in her essay on their tyranny. It was the 
absence of this that made all the difference in 
one’s ability to sympathize with these two 
strangers. In some odd way one felt that 

63 


Northern Neighbors 

though they were exactly as human as one’s 
self — that they possessed their souls. The 
old lady, catching my eye fixed on the cubby¬ 
hole, at once apologized. 

“It’s my room, Doctor. Mr. Martin took 
me in, and give me that part of his house for 
myself.” 

Six by six I was calculating. What a for¬ 
tunate thing she is so short! Having no door 
to it saved some space, however. 

“ I took her in,” repeated the sailor from the 
floor. “You see, Doctor, her son took her 
house to use for his own family when her man 
died, and then she had nowhere to go.” 

I thought I had known the meaning of 
“Given to hospitality” — but this old man of 
the sea had graduated from a more advanced 
school than I. 

“Tell us about yourself, Mr. Martin. Why 
do you want to see me?” 

The uncombed hair and unshaven beard, the 
sordid rags of the bedding, and the fact that 
there was not even a fire in the cracked stove 
couldn’t hide the fact that there was a man 

04 


On the Rocks 

with like passions to myself in the poor half- 
paralyzed body that lay stretched before me. 

44 Well, Doctor, the Lord has put his hand 
down on me, and here I am, and I can’t do a 
thing, except what the old lady does for me — 
Mrs. George Green, she is — what spent one 
winter at hospital. I owns this house, and I 
gave her room, and now she bides by me when 
she could go to her sister what has a comfort¬ 
able house, seeing she has her ‘bit o’ Govern¬ 
ment ’ (twenty dollars per year). She’d take 
her too, but her won’t leave me to bide here 
and perish like a dog.” 

The old lady had noticed me looking at the 
strange place for a sick man to be lying. “I 
keeps he out there, Doctor,” she apologized, 
“cos he can’t move hisself, and I can’t move 
he either, so he bides there between the stove 
and the door so when I be’s out he can tend 
both so long as there be’s any wood, that is.” 

“You has to walk round he,” was her 
apology, a quick reply to the doubt she saw 
in my eyes as to the propriety of the arrange¬ 
ment. 


65 


Northern Neighbors 

44 When did he get the stroke?” 

44 Last fall, twelve month, Doctor. He never 
wanted for nothing till then. Sister come to 
see him. She said she couldn’t cure he, and his 
leg be getting worse all the time. Firewood is 
the trouble, when t’ snow comes t’ik I can’t 
get it and there be no one to cut a junk off 
for we neither.” 

44 How do you get food?” 

44 1 caught a barrel of fish myself and me and 
Mr. Martin together got a barrel before he was 
took.” 

44 1 can catch ’em yet, I can,” came from 
the rag heap, 44 that be, so long as I can get 
into t’ boat.” 

44 The Government ’lows me twenty dollars 
a year, but I ain’t got it yet t’ year. I most 
wishes you might be able to say a word for 
me — but the trouble is t’ firing, we can’t get 
it, nohow.” 

Then in a quieter tone he went on, 44 1 ’lowed 
the Lord would take me last winter, Doctor. 
Charley from t’ Crick took care of we, and he 
were to have my t’ings. He had my gun, and 

66 


On the Rocks 

he have my table and a few t’ings. I got part 
of a barrel o’ flour for myself for my fishing 
punt and one net, and Jim, he fished the other 
two for we on halves, and so us got flour 
enough, and t’ old lady had hers from her 
Government — but t’ molasses were two dol¬ 
lars and forty cents a gallon and sour at that, 
Doctor. Us only had one bit of meat t’ winter, 
’cept a bit a neighbor sent over now and then, 
and there aren’t ne’er a one near by now to 
spare any. Thirty-two pounds of oleo us had 
and isn’t all out yet, t’ank God. That’s all 
us had — flour ’n molasses and grease.” 

“And a bit of sugar,” said the old lady, 
producing an old tin. “T’ merchant let us 
have it for ten cents.” She showed it me with 
a touch again of that pride that possession 
gives. But it was damp brown molasses sugar 
at that. 

“How long does a barrel of flour last you 
two?” To be quite accurate, she led me over 
to “the bar’l.” There was about six inches 
left at the bottom. 

“Us got he last October out of my ‘Govern- 

G7 


Northern Neighbors 

ment’ and us had a bit left when he come. 
No, us don’t eat much, no more’n some birds, 
I’m thinking.” 

I caught a merry twinkle in her eye. 
“You’ve got some left still?” I ventured. 
It seemed rather an unkind remark after it 
had slipped out, but she answered: 

“Oh yes, bless the Lord, enough still for a 
time,” and she carefully covered up her most 
valuable possession. 

Then the old man began, “You sees, Doctor, 
I’se been a sailor overseas. I’se been all over 
t’ world. I knows Plymouth Hoe as well as I 
know these rocks. A bad man — a bad man — 
used to swear powerful. And I didn’t care for 
nothing whiles I had my health. That’s why 
t’ Lord put His hand down on me. But I did 
have hopes He’d take me last winter. But 
maybe He forgot. The nurse, she come on 
dogs to see me, and she give me this blanket, 
and it be all right, t’ank the Lord, in t’ sum¬ 
mer. But it’s getting cold o’ nights now, and 
no fire neither. Yes, I had another blanket. 
But she wore out, and I had to patch her. T’ 

68 


On the Rocks 

school teacher from America send we a fine 
dickey for out hunting, so I split the fur off her, 
and sewed her into my blanket,” and he showed 
me his second and last covering, a shoddy bor¬ 
der with a split open “kossak” or outside 
dickey, regularly crucified into the middle of 
the so-called ‘ 4 blanket.” 

“She don’t hold much warmth,” he re¬ 
marked, philosophically, holding up the cover¬ 
ing in question in his well hand. “I did ’low 
some one might like to come here to stay t’ 
winter in return for finding t’ wood for we. 
You see I owns this house,” he added, with all 
the savour of sailors who have wandered much 
without any home or property of their own. 

“ But, my dear Mr. Martin, wherever would 
you put him if he did stay?” as I looked ap¬ 
prehensively around. 

“Oh, there be’s room for two on the lofting,” 
he said, “though I has my two nets up there, 
and my cast net. I ’lows I could change them 
for a bar’l of flour,” he suddenly interjected as 
this thought of a second line of defence flashed 
across his mind. “Charley, he wanted 


69 


Northern Neighbors 

them from me last winter, but I wouldn’t 
part with them. I’ve kept ’em for t’ old 
woman,” he said in a half whisper. “ Maybe 
she’ll need ’em one of these days. No one can 
get them there ” he broke in, in a defiant tone. 
And he looked fiercely up through the hole in¬ 
to the loft, as if, though he couldn’t get up to 
defend these nets, he kept continuous guard 
beneath. I hoped he might not think that I 
had any designs on them, and looked the other 
way, almost blushingly. 

While we were talking it had begun to rain 
torrentially outside. The little guide lady 
moved for the first time to avoid a bad drip. 
Indeed I had forgotten her, and now she moved 
only to cover better the fat baby, for the rain 
was without partiality descending equally 
through the roof on the Just and Unjust alike. 

The old lady also rose abruptly and im¬ 
provised a temporary dam to keep the rising 
flood on the floor from overwhelming the old 
sailor. 

“He can’t move, you see,” she apologized 
to me as she paused before me. 

70 


On the Rocks 

“ Can’t swim, I suppose,” I hazarded. Again 
the merry twinkle of her black eyes in these 
most depressing circumstances suggested how 
the soul can rise above things material. 

“Oh, I has a bit o’ felt to mend he with,” 
she added, referring to the roof, “but Mr. 
Martin, he can’t climb any longer” as if she 
thought of him still as he used to be lying 
out on a yardarm reefing a top sail in a 
gale of wind on the Atlantic. “ He can’t climb 
now — and I am no good to get on a roof 
myself. Sixty-eight is getting on, you knows. 
Doctor.” 

“Don’t apologize. Why doesn’t your neigh¬ 
bor come in and mend it for you?” I asked. 

“Oh, he says he has no time.” 

“Some folks think they won’t have time to 
come when Gabriel blows the trumpet for 
them,” I replied. 

“ ’Deed they won’t, Doctor. But them 
aren’t the busy ones here,” and she looked at 
the broken man on the rag heap as much as to 
say, “that’s not his kind, Doctor.” 

“You and Mr. Martin have had a lot of ex- 


71 


Northern Neighbors 

perience in this world,” I said. “ Is it a kind 
world, or a cruel one?” 

“The most folks is kind, Doctor, but them 
doesn’t all think.” 

“Mrs. Green,” I asked, “why don’t you 
leave this house and go to your sister? I can 
send you down in a motor boat.” 

“What’ll happen to he if I goes away now, 
Doctor? He were good to me, and took me in 
when I had no home.” 

“And what’ll happen to him if you do stay 
here into November? You know you can’t 
get fire for kindling till Xmas. You’ll be warm 
and fed with your sister anyhow.” 

“I would’t leave he now,” she said, and 
her bright eye again caught mine. I almost 
thought she winked. Anyhow her eyes just 
said, “Quit fooling.” And once again in these 
meanest of material surroundings I felt like a 
child learning some new truth. 

It was obvious that Mr. Cyril Martin was 
on his beam ends, like a certain other sailor who 
said, “No sun appeared in many days, and no 
small tempest lay over us, and all hope that we 

72 


On the Rocks 

should be saved was then taken away. Yet 
I believed the Lord.” 

I had been nearly two hours in the house. 
Both the man and the woman had had a 
strange attraction for me. Their simple direct¬ 
ness made me feel exactly as if I were myself 
in their position, with their problems to face. 
They did not ask for a thing. Only they put 
it as if it were some extraneous problem they 
wanted advice upon. It allowed one’s mind to 
forget the continuous demand for help that it 
is our lot in life to have to meet, and instead of 
resenting, however distantly, another possible 
attempt to get things, one felt all the joy of an 
adventure. Yet if his view was right that it 
was “ the Lord putting his hand down on him,” 
what was the good of our struggling? 

I put it to him plainly as such. He said 
nothing, evidently waiting for me to show my 
hand. 

“I know I should struggle for all I was worth 
— that’s what God does it for; to wake us up to 
do things worth while,” I suggested. 

To my surprise Mr. Martin began to cry. 

73 


Northern Neighbors 

“ You’se English,” he stammered. “ My father 
was English. Come from Dorsetshire.” And 
his fierce black eyes looked up through his 
tears, and the smile of the sun chasing clouds 
away broke all over his face. “Of course the 
Lord will help all He can,” he began. This was 
his fixed intuition — though I’m not sure he 
saw the depth of it. 

“Yes, I expect He always does better than 
we could. Now, would you like to pray be¬ 
fore I go?” 

“I was going to ask you,” he said. The 
burden of his petition was just “We thanks 
you, Lord, for all you has done for we.” 

I went away almost ashamed of my water¬ 
tight boots and oilskins compared with his 
rags. I felt I had been given the best of any 
morning’s blessings, both a challenge and a 
stimulus to my faith in life. Have you ever 
been absolutely convinced that the Lord 
needed your help? It seems a pity sometimes 
these pleasures can’t be purchased. Life is 
such a joyous venture, but life’s tragedies 
seem so momentous. Horatius called for men 

74 


On the Rocks 

to stand at his right hand and hold the Tiber 
bridge against ten thousand. Men jumped 
for the honor and joy of it. It was David who 
said, ‘‘Thou wilt show me the path of life. At 
thy right hand are pleasures, forevermore.” 
(Ps. 16:11.) There can be no other satisfactory 
explanation of our temporary stay on earth. 

We left what we could to tide matters over 
for a time, and promised to get him removed 
to the “House of the Poor” at the capital — 
where at least he would be fed and warmed and 
sufficiently clad. In this we were eventually 
successful. But it seemed so poor at best — 
to remove this old seafarer from every one 
whom he knew and from his life environment 
to await death among strangers in a city. We 
have no home in the north for the deserving 
aged. All worn-out old folk suffer with the 
dread of this ending. But so far it has been all 
we can do, and the profound thanks of the old 
couple hurt like a knife — for we had not been 
able “ to do unto the least of these ” that which 
we should have liked them to do for us in their 
places. 


JOHNNY 


* 

Johnny Duffy was the oldest son of a poor 
Roman Catholic fisherman living about eight 
miles from hospital, in a tiny cottage by the 
sea. One winter day, when everything was 
deep in ice and snow, Johnny’s father was away 
in the forest with his dogs getting wood, and 
his mother had gone out to a neighbor’s house, 
which was some way off, for houses are not 
close together where Johnny lives, in Labra¬ 
dor. When his father drew toward home he 
made out a number of children coming slowly 
over the snow, hauling something with them. 
Alas! when they were near, he saw that it was 
his Johnny whom they were dragging by his 
shoulders and one leg. His other poor little 
leg was hanging down, broken, and trailing 
along on the snow. He had fallen off the 
sleigh, on which they had been tobogganing 
down the steep hillside, and had broken his 
thigh across the middle. In old days (only a 
few years ago) Johnny would have had to lie 

76 


Johnny 

in terrible pain, and could not possibly have 
seen any doctor for months. Now, however, 
his father could leave the little boy with his 
mother, and hurry away over those eight 
miles of snow-covered hill and barren to St. 
Anthony Hospital. 

It did not take Pat long to travel that eight 
miles, yet, oh, how endless they seemed to the 
poor fellow! The wondering dogs had never 
before known him to shout and hurry them 
along so fast. Gallop and strain as they would, 
they could not satisfy their master. What 
could it mean? 

At length they topped the last hill, shot 
down like an avalanche some six hundred feet 
on to the snow-covered ice of our harbor, and 
a few minutes later, panting and exhausted, 
they were trying to bury themselves in the 
snow in front of the little hospital, to get 
shelter from the biting wind. 

Was it only a piece of “luck” that the 
father found that the Doctor had not yet 
started for a village some sixty miles to the 
south? Why, lying right there against the hos- 

77 


Northern Neighbors 

pital was another big team of dogs — two days 
they had been traveling, and had arrived only 
half an hour before, bringing word' that the 
good priest at Conche was taken ill with sud¬ 
den bleeding, and wanted medical help in hot 
haste. At that very moment the Doctor was 
packing the familiar medicine box in the hall, 
and his man Rube was in the larder stowing 
away some rough food in the nonny bag, in 
case they were caught out during the long 
journey. 

44 Whatever is the matter, Pat, you seem to 
have dropped in from the North Pole from the 
look of you?” 

“’Tis an accident, Doctor. My Johnny’s 
killed himself. Can’t you come back with me 
at once?” 

His distress was so evident, and the plead¬ 
ing so heartfelt and urgent, there was no pos¬ 
sible answer but one. 

“Yes, at once, Pat, of course. Here, Rube, 
sling this old box on the lend-a-hand komatik, 
and lash in well. The road is hilly, and it’s 
dark now. Go in, Pat, and get a cup of tea. 

78 


Johnny 

Rube and I’ll be ready in two minutes to race 
you home.” 

There were great tears welling up in the poor 
fellow’s eyes, as, with a husky “ God bless you, 
sir,” he followed the maid to the kitchen for 
some hot tea, which, indeed, he was badly in 
need of, having been out in the woods since 
morning. 

Our barking dogs were soon straining at 
their traces. It was dark, and only the hospital 
lights reflected on the snow enabled us to be 
sure that every knot was tight. There was a 
flash of steel as Rube drew his big hunting- 
knife across the stern-rope, which lashed the 
komatik to a driving-post, and then the strain¬ 
ing dogs leapt off into the night before ever a 
word was given them. “Hist! Hist! Damson! 
Haul in there, Spot! Haul in!” There was no 
need of lash or spur, for the keen cold night 
air made the snow surface crisp for the koma¬ 
tik, and braced the dogs’ magnificent muscles, 
while the fact that they knew their food was 
still ahead of them made every member of the 
team anxious to get the journey quickly done. 

79 


Northern Neighbors 

Soon we were overhauling Paddy’s team, for 
having impatiently swallowed his tea boiling 
hot, he had gone ahead to give us a lead. 

“Look out, sir,” we heard him shout. 
“You’d better loose your dogs. ’Tis terrible 
ice on the cliff side going down to Crameliere 
Bay,” and Rube had scarcely time to lean for¬ 
ward and slip the traces from the bowline be¬ 
fore our faithful “ Lend-a-hand ” komatik shot 
forward at a pace no dog could hope to attain, 
and the gathering momentum of each second 
warned us to cling close, if Johnny were to be 
the only one with broken bones that night. 
Down — down — and down! Now and again 
a shower of sparks warned us that still some 
snags of rock were jutting out through the 
generous mantle of the snow. But Rube and 
I were lying full length on the crossbars, as 
close to the ground as ever we could get, so that 
we might not capsize or be shaken off. Fortu¬ 
nately we did not strike anything. I say fortu¬ 
nately, for we went down with our eyes shut! 
The pace and the darkness made open eyes 
only an additional danger in such a descent. 

80 


Johnny 

Pat’s haste had not allowed him to use even 
his drag of chain. Moments were hours to him 
that night. What might not be happening to 
Johnny while he was away? 

Our faithful dogs were leaping on top of us 
almost as soon as the level bay ice brought the 
komatik to a standstill. To them it was the 
highest degree of good sport, and they were 
showing their joy in their boisterous dog way, 
tumbling over us and one another in their ex¬ 
citement. 

“ ’Tis just there, Doctor,” came echoing 
above the whirring of our runners, as right 
below us a single twinkling light came into 
view far down the last hillside toward the sea. 

Already they had heard us, those anxious 
watchers, and we saw the light flare up as some 
one brought it to the open door. “ ’Tis wel¬ 
come you are this night, Doctor. Come in, 
sir — sure Rube knows where to get food for 
the dogs. Come — Johnny’s a bit easier, thank 
God, but it’s longing for you we’ve been ever 
since Pat started.” 

No one could mistake it. The thigh bone 

81 


Northern Neighbors 

was obviously broken in the middle, for as the 
child lay on his back on the settle, the right 
knee and foot were at an angle with the little 
fellow’s body that made one creep to look at it. 

“Get a plank, Pat. We must start work at 
once, for I have to be off at daylight.” Pat, 
who was already clearing things away, a most 
necessary proceeding in so tiny a room, at once 
went out and brought in his only board, 
covered thick with ice and snow. It was not 
easy planing it smooth, still wet from the 
thawing ice. But the men of the sea are the 
“handy folk,” and with them obstacles are 
merely things to be overcome. 

Meanwhile Johnny had grown drowsy, and 
at length had dozed off to sleep. In a minute 
or so, however, an involuntary twitch waked 
the little fellow and he uttered a cry of pain. 
Fortunately we could spare his father, and he 
went and held the child in his strong arms to 
comfort him. As soon as ever weariness over¬ 
came his fear, the boy would fall off to sleep 
again only to wake with a cry of suffering that 
made us feel miserably slow-fingered as we 

82 


Johnny 

toiled on, padding the splints and making all 
our preparations. Midnight had long passed 
before the lad was laid out on the rude table to 
have his limb set. 

Only a few breaths of a heavy sweetened 
vapor and Johnny was off to a land of dreams, 
where twitching muscles would not give him 
pain, and whence even the straightening and 
grinding of the broken bone could not bring 
him back. 

Two o’clock — “He’ll do now, Pat, till 
morning. You must keep watch by him till 
he wakes. I shall sleep here on the floor, and 
you will call me as soon as he stirs, for I must 
be gone at daylight, as I told you. My as¬ 
sistant will come over and be with you till 
evening.” 

“ ’Deed I will so, sir,” said Pat. “ There’s no 
fear that I’ll close my eyes this night.” He had 
not seen chloroform given before, and he was 
still not quite convinced that Johnny would 
ever wake again. “ No fear, Doctor—lie down 
— lie down.” Already his wife had placed 
their only mattress on the floor in the corner. 

83 


Northern Neighbors 

The red glow of the early morning, reflected 
from the boundless snow outside, was stealing 
through the little window as I woke after a 
sailor’s rest of a watch below.” The dim out¬ 
line of Patrick Duffy keeping watch without 
a movement by the side of his little child was 
only just discernible, for even the tiny flame 
of one small lamp had been necessarily tem¬ 
pered to their scanty store of paraffin. He 
turned at my slightest move, and seeing I was 
awake, whispered, 4 4 Johnny has just wakened 
up, Doctor. He has slept like a lamb.” 

“Put the kettle on, then, for we must be 
starting. I am to meet the priest’s messengers 
at the Long Lake Narrows an hour after sun¬ 
rise.” 

Already I could hear, outside, the wakeful 
Rube calling the dogs from their hiding-places, 
and also the voice of some other driver, taking 
his team off betimes to the forest up the bay. 

Johnny was wreathed in smiles when I went 
over to the corner where we had arranged a 
level fracture-bed for him. I might have ex¬ 
pected the look of fear, for he could only as- 

84 


Johnny 

sociate me with having pained him. But the 
plucky little chap had forgotten his woes, and 
was lost in the delight of cuddling the curly 
black head of my faithful retriever. “No pain, 
eh, Johnny? ” No answer — only a look at his 
father, as if to ask, “What does he mean?” 
and he went on playing with his new friend the 
dog. So I took it that the splint fitted, and was 
able to insist on Pat getting a nap “to onct.” 

It was a glorious morning as we drove right 
out of the harbor mouth over the firmly 
frozen sea, galloping round the feet of the 
beetling cliffs that form so ominous a landmark 
when the hospital steamer visits this cleft in 
the hills during the summer time. Only a short 
hour and the hummocky ice had shut from our 
eyes all sight of the harbor, where the little 
fisher lad lay. On our return journey we would 
call and take him back with us to hospital so 
that we might set up the leg in plaster. 

When the off-shore winds which herald the 
coming of our brief summer had at last blown 
the heavy field ice from the Coast, and we were 
able to loose the hospital ship Strathcona from 

85 


Northern Neighbors 

her bonds, our first cruise of the season was 
to steam around to Crameliere Bay. As we 
sounded our whistle, whom should we see 
but Johnny Duffy running nimbly down the 
now mossy hillside toward the beach. As he 
scrambled aboard he reported proudly that 
he was helping Father with his boat, and would 
soon bring to Mother his share of the harvest 
of the sea. 


4 


/ 


REPORTED LOST 

The Atlantic coast of Labrador stretches from 
north to south almost six hundred miles, and 
is swept along its entire length by the frigid 
waters of the polar current. It is shut in for 
seven months out of twelve by the relentless 
rigors of a sub-arctic winter. Not till late June 
is it possible to penetrate the ice fields that 
fend off all intending visitors. The days of its 
brief summer seem all too short to the plucky 
fishermen who then work their way north in 
pursuit of the great shoals of cod. These fish 
are distinctly influenced in their movements 
by the changing temperatures of the sea. As 
fall approaches they retreat into the deeper 
waters, where it is supposed that they lie more 
or less torpid during the winter months. With 
the advent of spring they again approach the 
shore, “striking the land” first to the south, 
and then farther and farther north. The move¬ 
ments of the fishing fleets depend on those of 
King Cod, so that from July to October the 

87 


Northern Neighbors 

great bulk of fishermen are away north of the 
Straits of Belle Isle. 

Late one October when the snow lay over 
the land once more and young ice was begin¬ 
ning to form in the bays, we were bound out of 
the great fjord known as Hamilton Inlet. It 
was growing dark and we were still twenty 
miles from the entrance, when the watch 
called out, “There is a small boat lying off, 
Doctor, and waving a flag for us.” 

“Slow down, then, and let’s see what they 
want.” 

Soon a dingy with four hands was along¬ 
side. “ Can you carry us to some place where 
we can get the mail boat, Captain?” a tall 
fellow called out. “We’ve lost our vessel on 
White Island reef, and we’ve no way to get 
back.” 

“Very well, come aboard; but what vessel 
is it?” 

“The S.S. Sparrow, from Rodney Harbor. 
She belongs to Captain Flowers.” 

“Oh, the Sparrow, is it? Where did you 
say you ran her ashore?” 

88 


Reported Lost 

“On White Island reef.” 

“Did she sink at once?” 

“No, we had time to beach her; but she’s 
full of water, and we’ve been living under a 
sail waiting for the last mail boat from the 
north to take us off. But it’s terrible cold and 
there’s no firewood.” 

“Has Captain Flowers gone south?” 

“Well, no, sir; he’s waiting for the mail boat 
also.” 

“All right, go down aft and get some tea. 
The hospital is full aboard, so you’ll have to 
sleep where you can — engine-room floor, I 
guess. Haul up their boat there and lash it in 
board. Tell the chief not to fire any more. 
We shall anchor shortly for the night.” 

Our visitors appeared to be uneasy as they 
saw us head off for the White Island and 
gradually draw in toward the reef. And when 
at length we had cautiously hauled in to four 
fathoms of water and let down our anchor, the 
spokesman came to me and said: “ What are 
you going to do?” 

“ Wait till daylight and survey the wreck,” 

89 


Northern Neighbors 

I replied. From where we lay we could plainly 
see the boat lying on her beam ends. 

A little later he came back saying: “We’d 
like to go aboard the Sparrow, Captain, if 
you’ll let us, now we’re so close.” 

“Sorry I can’t allow it,” I answered. “The 
anchor watch is to see that no one leaves the 
ship till I do.” 

As dawn was breaking I was awakened by 
the faint sound of muffled oars, and leaped 
off my bunk just in time to discover that 
our four passengers had succeeded in throw¬ 
ing their boat out, and were stealthily pull¬ 
ing toward the wreck. It was but the work 
of a moment to send our crew after them, 
and I shortly heard the runaways grumbling 
exceedingly as they were unceremoniously 
shoved aboard over our rail. 

It so happened that Captain Flowers was 
the keeper of a saloon which had given rise to 
much trouble on the Coast, and we had reasons 
to suspect that he had purposely cast away the 
Sparrow for the sake of the insurance on her. 
Even a cursory inspection strongly confirmed 

90 


Reported Lost 

our suspicions, so we steamed on to the hospi¬ 
tal, landed our sick and the shipwrecked crew, 
took aboard a few useful implements and re¬ 
turned the same night to the wreck. After a 
few days’ labor our efforts to float her proved 
completely successful. We were able to free 
the hull of water at low tide, and found that 
the leak was a large round hole which had been 
punched from the inside with a crowbar, and 
a jagged mass of splinters was bristling on the 
outside. We succeeded in plugging the leak 
and on the top of the next tide we success¬ 
fully floated our prize and took her in tow. 

We decided that we would anchor the 
Sparrow in a safe spot while we went over to 
see Captain Flowers and tell him what we had 
found out. The conversation held early next 
morning when we called at the saloon and told 
our story will not bear repeating. The up¬ 
shot was that the wreck was put up for sale, 
and I was able to purchase it for fifty cents. 
Solemnly we drew up the bill of sale, signed it, 
had it duly witnessed, and I paid over a one- 
dollar bill, receiving fifty cents change. 

91 


Northern Neighbors 

Two days later, with the help of the em¬ 
ployees of the Hudson’s Bay Company, we 
hauled our steamer up on to the “hard,” or 
beach, and their shipwright safely executed all 
necessary repairs. We had previously taken 
the precaution to photograph the damage. 

Now began our long six hundred mile tow 
to the south. Once in a breeze of wind we 
parted the hawser, but secured the schooner 
again, and having purchased a new haw T ser at 
one of our ports of call, we set out for our last 
long tow with four hundred miles of the jour¬ 
ney safely accomplished. 

It was a fine afternoon in November when 
we put to sea, but it was already late, and the 
winter night fell rapidly. The wind rose strong 
with the oncoming darkness, and we were 
forced to steam fifteen miles out to sea in order 
to safely round a cruel series of breaking rocks 
which lie off the worst headland on the Coast. 
By midnight a heavy sea was running and we 
were obliged to go “dead slow,” for the Spar¬ 
row, wallowing in the huge swells, would first 
run almost over us even though she was at the 

92 


Reported Lost 

very end of all the warp we possessed, and 
then, dragging behind again, the slack line 
would come suddenly taut with a dangerous 
jerk. It was my midnight watch below, and I 
seemed hardly to have fallen asleep when I 
was awakened by a dripping, oil-clad figure in 
my cabin who shouted at me above the roar 
of the gale: 4 ‘The Sparrow’s gone, sir.” 

“Gone where?” 

“ Parted the hawser, sir.” 

“ How’s the weather? ” 

“Dark as pitch and thick with snow; ’tis a 
dirty night, sir.” 

“Can’t you see anything?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Very well; put the ship about and heave 
her to till I come on deck.” 

Rolling into those great swells, washed now 
and again by the tail end of a sea, it seemed a 
long wait for the morning. But it came at 
last and there, sure enough, every now and 
again visible through the driving snow as she 
rose on the crest of the surging waters, rode 
the gallant little steamer Sparrow. 

93 


Northern Neighbors 

We worked up to her and lay by to see if the 
gale would moderate, for it was impossible to 
get aboard her in such a sea. But the signs of 
the sky all pointed to worse weather; and our 
ship was small enough on a winter’s night in 
the North Atlantic. So at daybreak we were 
forced at last reluctantly to abandon her and 
seek safety from the still rising storm under the 
nearest land we should find. No one can tell 
our feelings as we took one last look at her 
riding masterless to fight alone the unequal 
battle with those waves. 

After the storm was over we spent three 
days searching those watery wastes in hope 
that even yet we might bring help to the little 
vessel. But nothing was ever seen of her again, 
and the great ocean hid in its bosom the traces 
of yet another crime. 

It was the end of November, two years later. 
The days were short and the nights long and 
dark, and every vessel that came in to harbor 
had a thick coating of ice about her decks, and 
shrouds that looked like sugar. Every soul 
who could do so had left the Labrador for the 


94 


Reported Lost 

winter, and the Coast was already wrapping 
itself in its impenetrable blanket of ice. The 
hospital steamer Strathcona had gone into 
winter quarters, and I was just leaving for 
England, when a cablegram was placed in my 
hand. “Barkentine Maggie reported lost on 
Dusky Islands, Labrador. Please investigate.” 
It was from Lloyds, underwriters, and there¬ 
fore demanded immediate attention. 

We had seen the barkentine at anchor be¬ 
fore we left for the south. It seemed an odd 
thing that she should have been on the Coast 
so late. In the official protest of the vessel’s 
loss which we now obtained from the ship¬ 
ping office, we found that the ship had started 
on her voyage to the Mediterranean market 
loaded with five thousand quintals of fish; that 
while passing through a narrow tickle the rud¬ 
der chain had broken, and the vessel, broach¬ 
ing to, had run hard and fast on the rocks. 
Great efforts had been made to save her, but 
all in vain; and though the crew had clung to 
the pumps till the ship was on her beam ends, 
their efforts had been of no avail and they had 

95 


Northern Neighbors 

been forced to abandon her to save their lives. 
The wreck had been put up for auction and sold 
for eighty dollars to our erstwhile friend the 
saloon-keeper, and former owner of the luck¬ 
less Sparrow. 

Without seeing the vessel we could only ac¬ 
cept the facts as stated. To go down and in¬ 
vestigate would mean both risk and expense, 
for it would be necessary to hire a steamer and 
take her six hundred miles to the north so late 
in the year, while the chances of saving any¬ 
thing seemed infinitely remote. 

Some said, “ Go and try.” The majority 
counseled, “Don’t be such an ass.” 

However, we decided to attempt it. We 
forthwith hired a small steam trawler, shipped 
a crew, took a diver and much wrecking ap¬ 
paratus, and left the Narrows on our voyage 
of discovery one snapping evening just after 
dark. Three days later our little ship, a mere 
mass of ice, hove to off Dusky Island. She was 
so coated that all spare hands were constantly 
employed chopping the rapidly accumulating 
ice from every exposed surface. All night we 

9 G 


Reported Lost 

drifted about, unable to venture near, but at 
daylight we drew in toward the land. What an 
exciting moment it was! Would our quest be 
fruitless? 

Suddenly a shout from the watch greeted 
my ears and a joyful cry of “ There’s her spars 
away on the lee bow!” 

“She hasn’t canted over much, either,” 
said the skipper, as we drew in near enough 
to see round the point of a big island. “And 
what’s more, no sea is going to get in there 
to hurt her.” 

She was set up so high on the rocks, and 
seemed so trim-looking for a wreck, that we 
were all mad to go aboard her at once. But 
she was beset about with ice, and after we had 
anchored as near as we dared go, it took our 
boats a long time to get alongside her. When 
at last we climbed over her sides we found 
that instead of the confusion that a hastily 
abandoned wreck would suggest, perfect or¬ 
der reigned on deck. Hatches were not only 
closed, but firmly sealed. Evidently no cargo 
had been jettisoned to lighten the ship. Every 

97 


Northern Neighbors 

door was neatly closed. The once broken rud¬ 
der chain had been carefully repaired. The 
ends of such ropes as were left were all well 
fastened. One block from the dismantled run¬ 
ning rigging which was loose on deck, was 
carefully marked, in indelible pencil, “top¬ 
gallant haulyard,” as if some lubber who did 
not know how to reset square rigging had 
labeled it, with the intention of putting it in 
its right place next spring. But, oddest of all, 
only the starboard pump was in running order, 
and the brasswork necessary to work the other 
was on the shelf in the round-house. 

The statement that the ship was only aban¬ 
doned to save the lives of the crew was pa¬ 
tently a false one. There was some little water 
in the well, but after thawing out the pumps 
and pumping for four hours the Maggie was 
dry again. 

Not an hour was to be lost if we were to 
get our prize south that winter. So while the 
skipper took soundings round the vessel to 
find the best way to haul her off, the diver 
was sent down to examine the damage to the 

98 


Reported Lost 

hull. Meanwhile another party worked with a 
boat at each hatch, carrying the undamaged 
fish cargo over to the hold of our steamer 
and so perceptibly lightening the abandoned 
ship. 

By the following night, though the con¬ 
stantly making ice bothered us a good deal, 
the big anchors had been laid out and a line 
hauled taut to the ship winches. The diver’s 
sketch of the ship’s bottom showed she was 
only chafed in the neighborhood of her fore¬ 
foot, and that at high tide she was now only 
aground forward. It would be high tide next 
day at eleven. All the fish had now been moved 
from the forward hatch of the vessel. 

At last the fated hour arrived. “All hands 
on the winches,” shouted the skipper. Tighter 
and tighter the stout warps strained. “Give 
it her, boys, only one more. Now — now, 
jump on the levers” — and then a creak, a 
shiver, a long-drawn groan, and the good ship 
Maggie once more floated free. 

To break into the store, rig the vessel, re¬ 
victual her, and replace all things necessary 

99 

y 

y i 

> > y 

> ' 


Northern Neighbors 

for a long voyage lost us yet another precious 
day. All night long our crew stuck doggedly at 
work. At length, having appointed our mate 
as captain on board the wreck and giving him 
two watches for his prize crew, we tried the 
most serious task of all, the “ limbering up.” 
The two great anchor chains fastened to the 
main mast were drawn through the hawse 
pipes and securely spliced to the ends of our 
doubly twisted steel-wire hawsers. 

Slowly we towed out in the early dawn, a 
strong headwind blowing off the frozen land. 
By night a heavy sea was running and the 
Maggie was plunging into it at the full length 
of both hawsers streaming astern — one-sixth 
of a mile behind us — so that even the bright 
mast headlights which we had given her were 
invisible for long periods together. 

In spite of all our indomitable skipper’s 
care, one of the hawsers parted, and was only 
repaired after anxious maneuvering. Often, 
as we learned afterward from the prize crew, 
the ship lurched so heavily into the seas that 
it was impossible for any one to live on deck. 

100 


Reported Lost 

Indeed, even her lofty jib-boom was broken 
by her diving. 

On the fourth morning we made the land, 
coming in upon it through a driving blizzard 
of snow and sleet. We were glad enough to 
haul in under its welcome shelter and nose our 
way along till the familiar Narrows of St. 
John’s Harbor opened up once again. It was 
only then that we dared count victory ours; 
and we steamed into the desired haven with 
all our bunting flying. 

Captain Flowers was found guilty of “ will¬ 
fully casting away the ship with the purpose to 
defraud the underwriters.” Four years’ im¬ 
prisonment was the sentence which the Court 
imposed, but death released the old man long 
before his term was finished. The saloon 
“down North” has remained closed through 
all these intervening years. As to the Maggie, 
she lived many a long day to sail our northern 
seas and redeem a reputation which had been 
so nearly lost for her on the Dusky Island. 


PETER WRIGHT, MAIL-CARRIER 

Amidst the scattered and scanty settlements 
of the Northland the great problems of the 
outside world afford little interest to our 
people. Thus many years ago speaking to one 
man about the great victory of the Japanese 
over the Baltic fleet, I was not surprised when 
my auditor turned around and asked: “Who 
be those Japans, Doctor?” as if they were a 
tribe of Eskimos in North Labrador. The ir¬ 
regularity of our communications with the 
outside world certainly affords us some excuse; 
but the difficulty in giving schooling to the 
children is the more potent factor. We are, 
therefore, better acquainted with events no 
longer current, so that when I asked a man a 
while ago if he knew who was the greatest man 
in England, he replied cheerfully: “Yes, sur; 
I guess he be Mister Bright.” Even the factor 
at one of the large posts of the Hudson’s Bay 
Company receives only one mail a year from 
the outside world. He has his daily paper put 

102 


Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 

on his table every morning. But his informa¬ 
tion is always exactly one year old. 

It is little wonder, therefore, if, like the rest 
of the world, our main interests are in our¬ 
selves and our own doings, and if we know, 
perhaps, more details about our neighbors 
than is good for either us or them. Indeed, 
few things happen along our shore which do 
not soon fly from mouth to mouth, and human 
characters cannot always stand such a test. I 
have known a peripatetic parson himself to be 
actually caught trouting on Sunday, in bliss¬ 
ful ignorance of the heinous offense he was 
committing! “For t’ parson was adrift in t’ 
week-days.” You may imagine how he startled 
the village by arriving on Sunday morning, 
trout pole in hand, a fine string of speckled 
beauties dangling by his side. 

So in our minds we who see the works of the 
Lord and His wonders in the deep, and have 
no doubt of His oversight of our affairs, grade 
our Christians by the way they do their daily 
work, and by their answer to the immediate call 
of duty. 


103 


Northern Neighbors 

All this is my excuse for telling you the story 
of our little mail-carrier, Peter Wright. 

In the ordinary acceptance of the word, 
Pete could not be called an athlete, body, soul, 
or spirit. Yet his prodigies of endurance and 
devotion to duty have taught us at least to 
rate both a strong will and a loyal heart high 
among the essential assets of the true sports¬ 
man. 

In a burst of confidence Peter once informed 
me: “I t’inks I is fifty-eight years of age, 
Doctor.” (And this was before Dr. Osier 
frightened us from becoming sixty.) He stands 
only five feet three inches in his stockings. 
His weight is one hundred and fifteen pounds, 
or rather less now, for he seems to be growing 
smaller year by year. He is perfectly erect, has 
piercing, deep-set eyes with heavy eyebrows, 
and answers questions almost as an automa¬ 
tic machine responds to a penny in the slot, 
shutting up with a snap. In this he is unlike 
his neighbors, whose attention readily wan¬ 
ders during any prolonged conversation. Pete 
never was a gossip. He was born and reared 

104 


Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 

on our Coast, though of English descent. He is 
unmarried. In his early days his attention 
was given to fishing and to hunting like the 
rest of us. But years and years ago, in the dim 
vistas of the past, he was appointed one of 
Her Majesty’s mail-carriers, and that position 
he has held ever since. Some think him a 
special creation. 

In summer the mails come to our village 
from the nearest point on the recently built 
railway line more than one hundred and fifty 
miles away to the south of us, until that road 
is closed by the struggling trains getting buried 
in the snows. Then the post comes all around 
the Island by carriers, and reaches us from the 
north and west. 

Some of the carriers drive large teams of 
dogs. Others, like Pete, having steep hills to 
climb and dense woods to struggle through, 
prefer “shank’s pony,” for they can then make 
short cuts, dodging from drogue to drogue of 
trees, and cross ice-covered bays that would 
not be safe for dogs. When the sea permits it, 
our letters come by steamer, and then Pete has 

105 


Northern Neighbors 

only to row along thirty miles of coast be¬ 
tween her ports of call. This he does cross¬ 
handed and alone in his tiny punt, the roaring 
surf of the open Atlantic rolling in on the cliffs 
beside him being his only companion. 

The distance for each carrier’s route varies. 
Pete’s is about one hundred miles “on the 
round.” Now this task would involve no 
special fortitude or heroism in a country where 
houses are frequent and where roads exist; 
where rivers are bridged and arms of the sea 
have ferries; where dense woods have paths 
and trackless barrens are “poled”; where 
travelers going to and fro keep communication 
open and afford a chance of help to any one 
overtaken by accident. Nor would it be such 
a task if “people wasn’t lookin’ for you 
reg’lar,” so that you could choose your weather 
for traveling. But Pete’s round possesses none 
of these facilities. There is no road at all. 
There are no bridges and no ferries. Scarcely 
any one ever travels the paths except where a 
solitary trapper crosses them in his fur rounds. 
Houses in certain places are as far as twenty 

106 



SHOEING DOGS 









Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 

miles apart. There are mountains to climb and 
rivers to cross, bogs to navigate or circum¬ 
navigate, interminable barrens and large lakes. 

When May comes and brings spring to those 
in more genial climes, the rivers are fretting 
dangerously at their winter bonds, and any 
unexpected moment may find their freedom 
again. The lakes are subtly undermining the 
icy bridges which we have used all winter. 
They are still so like the trusty ones with which 
we have become familiar that the unwary will 
surely be caught. Meanwhile the ponderous 
mantle of the winter sea is breaking up, and 
suddenly yielding to the persuasion of the 
strong westerly winds, has more than once 
broken from the land while some traveler 
has been crossing the wide mouth of an open 
bay. So he and his have gone seaward on a 
barque that seldom, if ever, brings him back 
home again. All that we know when one of 
these accidents occurs is that “Jack was seen 

at-, but never reached the spot he was 

making for.” 

Yet this stretch of country is Pete Wright’s 

107 



Northern Neighbors 

“ regular beat.” Year after year this small 
solitary man has compassed that round ten to 
twelve times each winter. Regular as clock¬ 
work, he turns up at each of his appointed sta¬ 
tions once a fortnight. The man comes and 
goes like a meteor. 

We were pitying ourselves one night as we 
turned into our comfortable sleeping bags on 
the floor of our host’s tilt. Pitying ourselves 
because it had been a heavy day on our dogs, 
and it was nearly ten o’clock before we reached 
the rude shelter. When I woke in the morning 
as the gray dawn was stealing in through the 
little window, I thought I heard a movement 
by the stove. There seemed something almost 
uncanny about it till I made out what it was 
and could distinguish a tiny erect figure sit¬ 
ting bolt upright, where none had been over¬ 
night. It proved to be Peter Wright. He had 
arrived about two in the morning, noiselessly 
stationed himself by the stove and, recharging 
it, had gone straight off to sleep, sitting on the 
settle, without a word to any one, as satisfied 
as if he were in a feather bed. 


108 


Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 

Now this place was the rendezvous of three 
carriers. The one from the westward was late, 
and Pete did not get his mails handed over 
until nine in the evening. He had thirty miles 
to his next station and the temperature was 
twenty below zero. At ten he rose to start. 
“ What, Pete, never going to leave at this time 
of night, are you?” 

“ Why, my dear man,” he replied. “ With a 
moon like this ’tis better in the woods than 
when them nippers [mosquitoes] is about. 
So long, Doctor,” and with that he went out 
absolutely alone. 

A good day’s travel is thirty miles. On a sick 
call he has covered forty-five miles. “I only 
counts on two and a half miles an hour; but I 
find I soon kills out them that travels four for 
the first day or two.” 

Pete carries nothing with him but his pre¬ 
cious mails. These, at times, weigh sixty 
pounds and over when he sets out, and the 
heavier they are the prouder he is of them. 
On one occasion, the southern carrier having 
been late, Pete had only two unstamped local 

109 


Northern Neighbors 

letters to carry and when we met him by the 
way he was almost too ashamed to stop and 
speak to us, though many men would say: 
“Us gets the same pay for the round and has 
less to carry.” And yet others: “It ain’t worth 
our going at all for two letters. Us’ll let them 
two bide over till next mail.” Not so Pete. 
Though some think his only a humble work, 
to him it was always a post for which he, Pete 
Wright, was responsible. No one else would 
do it if he left it undone, and therefore must 
he go if there were no letters at all. All the 
same, on that occasion he felt it a sort of lack 
of confidence, due possibly to some fault of his, 
that he should have so little entrusted to him. 

Once he was even more crestfallen. On our 
southern journey we met him one night joy¬ 
fully staggering along under a huge weight of 
mail matter bound for the same tilt at which 
we were preparing to stay the night, so we, 
being the largest recipients of letters in our 
district, were anticipating the opening of the 
mail bags over tea. 

At last the seal was broken, the twine cut, 

110 


Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 

and there fell out on the floor an innumerable 
quantity of the identical kind of packages. 
They proved to be simply one large consign¬ 
ment of patent-medicine advertisements. If 
we had had faith in the testimonials to their 
extraordinary value, we should only have been 
left the more sorry, for it was as impossible for 
us to get any of that elixir vitae as to get 
strawberries and cream. Meanwhile, Pete had 
previously been bemoaning because he left one 
bag behind as he was physically unable to 
“spell” the two on his back at once. The 
mails are carried in waterproof bags and so 
slung over the back as to bring the main weight 
high up between the shoulders. Pete never 
carries either compass or waterproof covering, 
though in spring he arrives sometimes in fog 
as thick as pea soup, or drenched to the skin by 
what he calls with a contemptuous smile only 
a “ sou’westerly mild.” 

He has arrived in one village after midnight, 
only his deepset eyes visible, his handkerchief 
tied over his mouth and frozen there, so that it 
would take full ten minutes to thaw it off, up 

111 


Northern Neighbors 

to which time he could not utter a single word. 
He carries nothing to eat but a cake of hard 
bread (or ship’s biscuit), as that does not freeze 
as soft bread does. But these later years, hav¬ 
ing fewer teeth left, he has to moisten the 
aforesaid biscuit before he can demolish it. 
Now, when lakes are frozen to the bottom and 
rivers are twenty feet under snow, this is no 
easy task. So Pete has to depend more and 
more on his knowledge of boiling springs, for 
he never yet was “nish” (tender) enough to 
stop and boil the kettle when he had to lose 
time melting snow for water. Indeed, he never 
carries an axe, though no traveler who thinks 
of personal comfort would ever venture out in 
this country in winter without one. In our 
country an axe means a fire, a tilt for shelter 
and a hot drink, if one happens to be over¬ 
taken in the woods. 

“ After March month comes in, I does carry 
soft bread,” he confided to me. It was a kind 
of indulgence he allowed himself after the back 
of the winter’s work was broken. 

It was only by chance I discovered that Pete 

112 


Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 

possessed any frailties common to our kind. 
For my hostess once told me she occasionally 
persuaded him to accept dough-boys, “with a 
bit of chopped pork and molasses pounded in 
to stop ’em freezing, and cos Pete says they 
gives a won’erful light to his eyes.” 

Our folk regard one thing about him as 
doubtful. He travels every day, considering 
the imperious call of the mail superior to that 
for Sunday rest. We might understand this 
when there are “sealed” letters (magic word) 
in his bag. But as they usually are only of the 
class that contains “ I hope this finds you well, 
as it leaves me at present, thank God,” we are 
a little fearful for Pete’s moral welfare. As a 
rule Pete responds to the mail as an arrow to a 
bowstring, though “However hard pushed I 
is, Doctor, I always tries to get two hours’ 
sleep in the twenty-four.” And he once said 

to me, half apologetically, “I don’t reckon, 

\ 

Doctor, when a man has an easy mind that 
five or six hours is too much.” 

Peter smokes, by doctor’s orders, after each 
of his two meals. “ I finds it does me good on 

113 


Northern Neighbors 

times,” he says. But he admits that he finds 
the pipe at night “sweet enough.” Tobacco 
was originally ordered him for a kind of asthma 
from which he was suffering; but I more than 
fear that that can no longer be blamed for the 
continuance of the habit. If he exceeds the 
prescribed two pipes, he says, “It does me 
harm, I ’lows.” 

Pete’s two inseparable friends are his small 
knobbed stick, which he cut himself in the 
woods many winters ago, and his snow rackets. 
Large and round they are, not built for speed, 
but to keep him up. “The least sink breaks 
my step,” he says, “and that soon tells. No, 
I never takes ’em off, not even on hard ice. 
You see, I was always terrible on rackets from 
a boy.” 

Pete seems to love every one. He is always 
ready to oblige, and never happier than when 
the space on his back, ordinarily monopolized 
by his official bundle, permits him to carry 
also a ten-pound tub of butterine, or a couple 
of gallon jars of molasses, “just to oblige.” 
It isn’t for the filthy lucre alone that Pete 

114 


Peter Wright, Mail-Carrier 

works. His magnificent remuneration is ten 
dollars a trip, and out of this when there is 
more than he can carry he must hire another 
man to “ spell what’s over.” It is lucky for 
Pete he does not have hotel bills to meet as he 
journeys from place to place. There would be 
little left of the salary beyond enough for “ skin 
boots ” if he were charged for meals. But there 
are no hotel bills on the coast; we are quite 
incapable of an idea so original as to ask Pete 
to pay for anything. 

So when Peter’s last cruise is finished and he, 
in common with all of us, can carry only his 
record with him over the final trail, we shall all 
expect him to hear his Master’s “Well done.” 

Pie says he has been a little nervous of late 
about a pack of wolves which followed the 
western carrier, for “ you see I only has my old 
stick to help me.” But some of us wink slyly 
when the wolf story comes up, for we pity the 
wolf that would try to digest so indestructible 
a phenomenon as Peter Wright, mail-carrier. 


PADDY 

A call had come in one winter morning for 
help from a village thirty miles away. A mere 
bagatelle with a good team of dogs, if we could 
run light, and if there was any surface to the 
snow. But in this case a nurse was needed as 
well as our operating outfit, and a recent heavy 
storm made the usually well-beaten trail along 
the seaboard even a tougher proposition than 
forcing a pathway along the blazed trail 
through the woods. By crossing the country 
we could shorten our distance by a league or 
so, and also travel the last ten miles on the sea 
ice of a large bay, which one might reasonably 
expect to be better wind-swept than the closer 
leads along the landwash. 

Our driver with the baggage and faster dogs 
broke the path for us, while I followed with the 
nurse in her “woman box” on a light whale¬ 
bone-shod sleigh of hickory. But in spite of 
our best energies, progress was slow. The snow 
was so very treacherous that twice our sleigh 

116 




Paddy 

had capsized coming rapidly down steep slopes, 
as the bow sank into dangerous holes, and this 
to the great discomfort of its occupant. 

Evening was coming on when we at last 
broke out on to the great bay and we were 
therefore already unable to discern the low- 
lying promontory projecting out into the sea 
on which stood the village we were looking for. 
Having “cooked our kettle” and rested the 
dogs under the clumps of trees by the land- 
wash, the nurse being “game” we decided to 
go ahead, realizing that delay might rob us of 
the whole value of our visit. 

Heavy seas driven by the recent storm heav¬ 
ing in under the ice had smashed it up only 
to leave it to freeze again into fantastic pin¬ 
nacles and hummocks that made progress 

« 

in the increasing darkness both difficult and 
painful. To make it worse a dense fog set in 
soon after we left the land, and it became nec¬ 
essary to stop at frequent intervals and con¬ 
sult as to our next move, since, like tenderfeet, 
we had overlooked our compass. 

The time went by quickly. The fog robbed 

117 


Northern Neighbors 

us of any chance of getting a bearing from the 
stars, and by eight o’clock the darkness was 
intense. Suddenly our driver ahead shouted 
loudly to me to stop. His dogs had come right 
up to an ice edge, against which he could hear 
the lapping of the open sea. Obviously we 
must retrace our steps, and that as quickly as 
possible, for the chance of a sheet of ice break¬ 
ing off and carrying us seaward was entirely 
probable. With the greatest care we moved al¬ 
ternatively, trying to keep away at right angles 
to the water. But an hour’s work only brought 
us to yet another ice edge, or perhaps the same 
again. Thereupon the process was begun once 
more, and this time, after another hour, we 
found ourselves amongst much rougher ice. 
Now and again one of us would fall off a high 
hummock edge, or walk right into the per¬ 
pendicular face of a pinnacle, striking it first 
of all with his face. 

Judging that this time we must be nearing 
the land, and anxious to double our precau¬ 
tions, both sledges were now halted; and taking 
a course from each I tried by continually call- 

118 


Paddy 

ing to keep going in a straight line, and if pos¬ 
sible find some steep vise — that would indi¬ 
cate that we had made a landing. But the plan 
proved useless, bringing me in about a quar¬ 
ter of an hour right up to the sledges again, 
only now on the other side of them. Both 
driver and nurse assured me that they had not 
broken orders and moved an inch, and it was 
obvious that I had circled right around them. 

Hungry and tired, we decided to have sup¬ 
per, and to discuss staying where we were 
for the night, for we felt sure that we were 
near land by the nature of the ice. We could 
not be certain, however, that the fog would 
lift with the dawn, and both for our own sakes, 
and that of our prospective patient, we were 
eager to push ahead. 

It had come my turn to wander off and try 
again for land. I had pushed on till the an¬ 
swer to my call was so faint from the sledges 
that I dared go hardly a yard farther, when 
suddenly a tremendous noise came right be¬ 
neath my feet, and some animal dashing be¬ 
tween my legs made my hair stand on end. 

119 


Northern Neighbors 

From the whirr and whizz, followed by an¬ 
other, and another, that broke the silence, I 
was aware, as soon as my equanimity was 
restored, that I had lumbered right on to the 
top of a covey of willow grouse, and was 
actually walking on the land. The dogs were 
soon jumping up around me, keenly interested 
in where the partridges had been. When peace 
was restored the leader insisted on starting off 
in the direction which we felt must be wrong 
for us, for judging by the level nature of 
the snow, we must be on the neck of some 
headland. She seemed so confident, however, 
knowing now we were looking for a house, that 
we decided to leave it to her, for we could not, 
anyhow, tell her which of the scattered cot¬ 
tages we wanted. 

It was midnight when the dogs halted and 
came back to the komatik, wagging their tails, 
obviously to tell us they had found what they 
were looking for. It proved to be a tiny house 
wrapped in darkness, and almost entirely 
buried in with snowbanks. A light, however, 
was soon kindled inside, for our big team of 

120 •? i 


Paddy 

hungry wolves had already burrowed down 
under the house and were growling at and 
fighting with the owner’s dogs, immediately 
beneath where the family slept. 

“ Sure, ’tis yourself, Doctor, and ’tis mesilf’s 
glad to see you, and ’tis Biddy that’s — But 
sure, there’s a lady with ye, and me talking 
while she stands outside. And where may ye 
be bound for on a night like this?” 

It was well below zero and Paddy had just 
jumped out of a warm bed and was standing 
by his open door. So we were glad enough 
it was a good-natured man whose house we 
happened upon, though we knew that he had 
eight children, and a perennial scarcity of other 
assets. A fire was soon crackling in the stove, 
and the family having been rearranged so as 
to afford more floor space, we essayed to pro¬ 
duce and cook some of our own provisions. 
Paddy would, however, have none of it. Sure 
he had a tin of milk in case the priest had to be 
sent for, and his honor wouldn’t be satisfied if 
he didn’t open it for us. A prolonged search 
produced also a small bag of sugar, for ’tis mo- 

121 


Northern Neighbors 

lasses the Murphys always used for them¬ 
selves for sweetness. ’Twas baking day, glory 
be to God, or there’d have been no loaf bread. 
But sure the youngsters were that hungry in 
the winter-time that there was most always 
a batch of it in t’ oven, while as for pertaties, 
there was more Murphys in t’ room than in 
t’ cellar come Christmas these days. 

There was no more sleep for Paddy that 
night. Our dogs must be fed, after he had 
adapted the only available space — his store¬ 
room — for our nurse’s private sleeping com¬ 
partment. And then there was watch to keep 
and breakfast to get, for we must hurry along 
at daylight, having missed our objective in the 
fog by something like three miles. 

While we breakfasted, Paddy had harnessed 
up his team and gone on ahead without giving 
us a chance to thank him. For he wanted us to 
have his trail to guide up, and to prepare the 
Macreadys for our arrival. 

Our case went well. We made hospital again 
three days later, and beyond sending a few 
small mementoes to Paddy for his kindness, he 

122 


Paddy 

soon passed from memory in the multiplicity 
of functions that demanded one’s attention. 

Prohibition came into force the following 
year, and a real live policeman was “wished 
upon” our district. His livelihood was of a 
predatory variety, and practically half of all 
fines were his prerogatives. It was the only 
possible plan to assure devotion to duty. 

Constable Scrimgour proved himself a para¬ 
gon. Though I had been a magistrate for many 
years, my total unacquaintance with the law 
and procedure had made our annual list of 
convictions hitherto so modest as to be almost 
negligible. In one bad case of slander we had 
bound over the offender to go to tea every night 
for a week with an injured lady and, to insure 
execution, had dropped in ourselves. Another 
whose “unruly member” had made trouble 
in a village had been condemned for six months 
to hoist upon her lintel, “Keep the door of my 
lips, O Lord, that I sin not with my tongue.” 
We had no jailor and this method had avoided 
extravagance. 

But suddenly one day, while our new guard- 

123 


Northern Neighbors 

ian of the law was still covering himself with 
glory, I found myself sincerely rueing my 
judicial responsibility. It was a lovely morn¬ 
ing, and I was returning from hospital much 
elated with the progress of my patients, when 
I met our new friend evidently in search of me. 

“Good-morning, officer. Nothing wrong, 
I hope?” For he had clicked his heels and 
stood at the salute as if he were receiving an 
admiral of the North American Squadron. 

“Want to see you privately about a case, 
sir.” 

“Very well, come along then, and let’s get it 
over,” and we adjourned forthwith to my office. 

“It’s Paddy Murphy, your honor. I want a 
warrant against him for moonshining! ” 

“Paddy Murphy! Why, he hasn’t had 
enough molasses to make a single noggin of, 
beyond what the family eats; and I’m sure he 
hasn’t any other kind of stuff to make it out 
of.” 

“That was what made me suspicious, your 
honor. Didn’t I see how they was having no 
shortage, and this a bad fishery as well?” 

124 


Paddy 

Alas, there was no help for me, and with a 
guilty feeling as of doing something behind a 
good man’s back, I gave the sergeant what the 
law compelled. 

Court was called a week from that day. A 
case in court is an entertainment no man of 
spirit would miss in a country where moving 
pictures had not penetrated, and all kinds of 
diversion can be counted on one’s fingers. In 
due time the fateful day approached, and I 
was told that Paddy had come to town and 
was eager to see me. The new law ran that a 
hundred dollars fine or three months was the 
minimum that could be imposed. Every one 
knew not only that our good friend was not the 
possessor of a hundred cents, but that if he 
was taken from his family during the winter 
months they would certainly freeze to death, 
for they depended entirely upon him for their 
firewood. Moreover, they would assuredly 
starve as well, for the oldest boy was yet far 
too young to earn enough to feed the rest, and 
alas, the Murphy family, like the ravens, had 
never troubled about storehouses and barns, 

1 25 


Northern Neighbors 

or been guilty of undue anxiety about to¬ 
morrow. 

Knowing by experience the honesty of our 
people and the absolute certainty of Paddy’s 
convicting himself if allowed to, I tried to 
forestall even his volubility when at length he 
shamefacedly walked into my office. I has¬ 
tened to assure him that I knew he would not 
say he was guilty. 

“ Guilty is it, Doctor dear? It wasn’t doing 
harm to any one I was after. Just making a drop 
o’ the crature that the Murphys have been 
brought up to all their lives. No, I’m not guilty, 
and what that spalpeen is making all this 
bother about, only the Holy Father knows.” 

“ If you say that in court to-morrow, Paddy, 
do you know you’ll have to pay a hundred dol¬ 
lars or go to prison?” 

“ Sure, and what’ll the rest of the Murphys 
do at mealtimes, Doctor? What’ll they be 
doing to fend for theirselves whilst I’m away? 
For you knows yourself, Doctor, that cash is 
beyond the reach of the Murphys of this 
coast.” 


126 


Paddy 

A good hour was just thrown away on Paddy. 
I could not get him to understand either the 
crime or the rigidity of the law, and my re¬ 
peated advice to hold his tongue even failed to 
help. 

All the village was present and all the vil¬ 
lages from along the shore that could “ bring 
it to bear,” when the trial came off. Paddy, 
quite at his ease, walked in with the constable. 
First he wanted to sit by the judge and then to 
light his pipe, being unaccustomed to so much 
public attention. It was a bad beginning to be 
told by the policeman, whom he regarded 
solely as a personal enemy, “You can’t smoke 
here.” But he recovered quickly enough to 
reply, “No offense meant,” and with an eye 
henceforth on the officer, to return the pipe to 
his pocket while he reached for a seat. 

“You must stand up while you are in the 
court,” only brought forth “Moind who y’re 
talking to, sorr,” and Paddy sunk into the 
armchair reserved for a fellow magistrate. 

When he had at length been persuaded to 
comply with the ritual consonant with the 

127 


Northern Neighbors 

dignity of the law, I reminded him of our con¬ 
versation in the office and then warned him he 
need not plead guilty. But so little did it enter 
his head what I was trying to get at, that the 
policeman had to repeat the challenge almost 
into his ear, “Are ye guilty or not guilty?” 
“Eh?” 

“Are ye guilty or not guilty?” 

“Who says I am? Tell me that, will ye, ye 
landlubber?” 

“I’m asking ye whether ye are guilty or not 
guilty,” replied the imperturbable minion of 
the law. “If ye ask me another, ’tis the law 
itself I’ll be taking you to, ye southern for¬ 
eigner.” 

“Paddy,” I broke in, “this is the law, and 
I’m asking you — Did you make the whiskey 
or not? Don’t you remember what I told you? 
Don’t you remember I am a magistrate?’ 

His “Faith and I do, Your Majesty” would 
have been too much for my gravity if he 
hadn’t immediately followed it with, “And 
who else should have made it, then?” 

Incorrigible honesty is the bane of our 

128 


Paddy 

judiciary, where only the dishonest man 
pleads 44 not guilty.” 

44 Do you mean you are guilty or not?” 

“’Tis guilty I’m telling you I am,” and the 
case ended abruptly with a hundred dollars or 
three months, there being no other alternative 
open. The court felt like a graveside, the com¬ 
pany sneaking silently away. Every one was 
thinking of the wife and the octave away in the 
cove. As for Paddy, with his eternally sunny 
disposition, he would soon adapt himself to 
any place, and, besides, the people of our vil¬ 
lage were rigid teetotallers. 

At last I found myself alone with the 
criminal, who was wanting to know what he 
was to tell Bridget. 

“Tell her, you — ” I was going to say some¬ 
thing uncomplimentary to his reasoning pow¬ 
ers, but what service would it be? “Oh, go and 
tell her if you don’t bring me a hundred dollars 
before next Saturday noon, you’ll be out of 
harm’s way for three months, and may the 
Lord have mercy on your crowd.” 

While working in our garden on Saturday 

129 


Northern Neighbors 

half an hour before the time appointed, I spied 
Paddy, who oddly enough prided himself on 
his punctuality, trudging over the hillside in 
search of me. He carried something in so large 
a handkerchief, that at first it appeared he 
had come to settle his debt in kind. But hav¬ 
ing carefully unwound the garment on a stray 
rock, he invited my inspection of the contents. 
I counted forty-nine dollars and fifty-three 
cents in old small bank-notes, and odd coin of 
many ancient vintages. 

At a numismatic bureau they might have 
been worth more. But I had to explain to 
Paddy that His Majesty the King only accepts 
coin at face value, and that I wanted as much 
more in half an hour. 

“ But ’tis all the neighbors had, Doctor, and 
sure, can’t he wait till t’ fish comes in t’ year 
for t’ rest?” 

“He says he can’t wait after twelve 
o’clock, Paddy, so you must hurry, or it’s 
locked up you’ll be, as sure as your name’s 
Murphy.” 

More surprised than disappointed, Paddy 

130 


Paddy 

packed up his parcel and disappeared jauntily 
in the direction of our own village. 

Now, on our Coast religious denomination 
rather than any other one factor, determinates 
the habitat of an individual settler, the various 
creeds for the most part keeping in separate 
villages. Our own was essentially Protestant, 
Paddy’s essentially Catholic, while our re¬ 
spective attitudes towards intoxicating bever¬ 
ages were those of the Puritan and Sir John 
Falstaff. Moreover, knowing our poverty, due 
to the terribly high cost of living, as I watched 
my victim trudge off to spend his last half hour 
in a good Puritan village, I feared he was fol¬ 
lowing a forlorn hope. 

Half an hour later, with real sorrow at heart, 
I found myself once more in the little court¬ 
room, pondering over the new problem of a 
grass widow and eight children. I felt it was 
necessary to see that some provision was made 
in our winter environment for our unexpected 
and unwelcome guest. At that psychological 
moment a sprightly footstep on the bare 
wooden stair, followed by the grinning face 

131 


Northern Neighbors 

of Paddy ■ Murphy himself, terminated my 
reverie. 

46 ’Tis all here, Doctor dear. Sure my good 
friends couldn’t see me left,” and the great 
red handkerchief was once more solemnly un¬ 
knotted and unwound. Sure enough, this time 
the whole hundred was forthcoming. As Paddy 
showed no desire to state where he had pro¬ 
cured it, I forbore to question him, and merely 
gave him King George’s blessing and my own 
warning to keep clear of the “crature” in 
future, which he assured me he would do, and 
so far as I know, he has done. 

A day or so later the mystery of the treasure 
was unearthed. A young married fisherman, 
an unimpeachable prohibitionist and a prom¬ 
inent leader in the church, with the tender 
sympathy of the people “who go down to the 
sea in ships,” having just the necessary balance 
stowed away in a stocking, had been unable to 
endure the idea of hungry and cold children. 
So he had literally emptied the stocking into 
the red handkerchief. I naturally felt forced 
to upbraid him for his improvidence, at which 

132 


Paddy 

he pretended great humiliation. So much so 
that lie finally consented to my going halves 
in the investment, provided the whole con¬ 
spiracy were kept absolutely silent. 

All that I pined for at the time was a mo¬ 
ment of the talent of G. K. Chesterton for 
properly airing paradoxes. Why should we 
teetotallers be adding to a deplenished pocket 
a further skeleton for our cupboard, just be¬ 
cause that rascal Paddy Murphy had made 
molasses into moonshine? 


GHOSTS 


Ghosts? Of course we all believe in ghosts, 
whether we say we do or not. Anyhow, a 
creepy feeling went all down my spine when 
one day a thin, meanly dressed man suddenly 
confronted me with a smile, sardonic as I ever 
conceived a material smile could be, and of¬ 
fered to shake hands. His general contour, 
and his get-up, were entirely strange to me, 
but an odd sense that I had seen him before 
and ought to know him, flooded my mind. 

But Bill — Bill, who had been my engineer 
for so long, was dead. He was drowned at sea 
a year ago. And yet the altered appearance 
could not convince my perturbed mind that 
out of the thing that stood before me, Bill 
was not looking at me. “ Bill, is that you, or 
are you dead?” was the sanest expression my 
cerebrum succeeded in evolving. 

“It’s me all right, Doctor!” came back the 
answer in the familiar English of our Coast. 
“A British barken tine picked us up at the 

134 


" Ghosts 

very last minute.” Bill showed material signs 
of extracting a pipe from his pocket and wish¬ 
ing to sit down, after which he told me the fol¬ 
lowing yarn. 

“We were bound in for St. John’s from 
t’ Island late in t’ fall. The engines needed 
packing before us laid her up for t’ winter. It 
were only thirty miles to the entrance of the 
harbor, and so us only put aboard food for a 
day, and a couple of tons of coal. When us left 
home the wind was moderate, and soon fell 
away almost to calm. Everything went like a 
dream till suddenly a breeze sprang up from 
the sou’east. It freshened mighty quickly, 
gradually drawing ahead of us, and us pressed 
our little vessel all she could bear, so as to drive 
her on quickly under the shelter of the cliffs.” 

Fierce blasts of wind fell down on them each 
time they passed a cove or inlet, but they got 
safely along till they were rounding the north¬ 
ern head of St. John’s harbor itself. Then 
suddenly a real hurricane hit them, together 
with heavy snow, and nearly blew them over. 
In spite of all their efforts they made no head- 

135 


Northern Neighbors 

way, indeed they gradually lost ground, and 
though they raised every pound of steam that 
they could, they found themselves slowly fall¬ 
ing into the trough of the sea. One big sea, as 
high as a cliff, at last rose up alongside, and 
had it hit them fairly would have sent them all 
straight to Davy Jones’s Locker; as it was it 
swept the deck of everything loose and fill¬ 
ing her to the rails poured down the companion 
hatch and flooded the engine-room above the 
plates. 

There was only one thing to do if they were 
to save their little ship. That was to put her 
before the wind just as quickly as they could. 
She had only a small topsail used to steady 
her in a beam lop. Seconds seemed hours while 
trying to turn in the maelstrom, though thanks 
to her steam they were in reality soon before 
the gale, but now heading out southeast by 
east into the open Atlantic. Home and safety 
lay only a few yards from them, but there was 
no arguing with that breeze, while it was im¬ 
possible to head her up to the seas which hit 
her in the face with the skilled malice of a 

136 


i 


Ghosts 

prize fighter. Out into the open they had to 
go, fervently praying that the storm might be 
but the tail end of a cyclone, which would soon 
pass over them, for the seething cauldron of 
that wintry sea was writhing as water would 
in the flames of Hell. 

As they ran farther and farther from the 
shelter of the cliffs, the seas became moun¬ 
tainous, and when the early darkness of De¬ 
cember shut down upon them, they none of 
them expected ever to see the daylight. The 
boat was only an old iron trawler. She had 
been a fish cutter, serving with the Short Blue 
Fleet in the North Sea in the ’eighties of the 
last century. When classed as no longer fit 
for that terribly exacting service, she had 
been bought up and condemned to be used on 
the Labrador Coast, once again in the fishery 
business. As a model, she was perfect for a sea 
boat. Her construction also had been all that 
human ingenuity in a British shipyard could 
put into a boat of her size; and in her long life 
she had weathered many a gale in which larger 
vessels had disappeared. But she was almost 

137 


Northern Neighbors 

in her dotage now, and her long out-dated 
powers left little doubt as to the outcome, if 
the storm held on. Game to the end, however, 
she would go down like a superannuated 
champion hurled back into the ring after his 
day was done. 

There were six in the crew — all Newfound¬ 
landers, and every one seasoned by many hard 
knocks of this same kind since their boyhood. 
So grimly they buckled down to fight it out, 
and not a moment was lost in vain regrets or 
even for the rest which ordinary bodies de¬ 
mand. Their handful of coal was already al¬ 
most gone, so while they tore off the canvas 
boat covers, and feverishly converted them 
into a square sail to keep the ship before the 
sea, they let the fires out to save coal in case of 
that last chance which the optimism of these 
Newfoundland vikings with the faith of chil¬ 
dren just naturally expects. 

During the night the seas coming over her 
had broken in all her skylights, and she had 
shipped a good deal of water, so it was ab¬ 
solutely necessary to again raise and maintain 

138 


Ghosts 

a few pounds of steam on the donkey engine 
in order to keep the water out of the engine- 
room. Morning found them still afloat, the 
gale as furious as ever, and the watches still 
straining their eyes over the waste of waters. 
Only mountains of sea met their view, but not 
a man left his post. 

At daylight the improvised sail was hoisted 
on a pole and served well. To nurse their little 
store of remaining coal they began to burn 
what wood they could find in the ship, for they 
were still forced to keep the pump going. The 
first things to be sacrificed were the tables, 
lockers and bulkheads, and then the cabin 
floors. Next day the inside lining of the deck, 
the closets, and the deckhouses were cut up. 
They had a good lifeboat, so when the third 
morning came and they were still afloat the 
jolly-boat had to join the hecatomb. In the 
heavy sea they had not dared lift her into 
davits, so they chopped her up as she lay on 
her blocks, which followed her eventually into 
the insatiable flames, that were themselves 
clamoring relentlessly, as if they had sensed 

139 


Northern Neighbors 

the import of the fury of the icy waters out¬ 
side. 

That day smoke was seen on the horizon, 
and terrible as the weather was, they made out 
that the vessel must certainly cross the course 
upon which they were drifting. The captain, 
still in the wheel-house, a post he never once 
left till he left it for the last time, ordered all 
the steam they could get, and just as quickly 
as they could get it. With that order, the last 
of their coal went into the furnace, with not a 
few rags soaked in oil, so as to throw up as 
much smoke as possible. Every one knew that 
it was a race for life. The stranger’s smoke 
was obviously crossing their bow; yet all they 
dared to do was to run on before the seas, for 
they were already partly waterlogged, and not 
for one second could they let her broach to 
even half a point. 

Neck and neck it seemed at first a race 
with death with at least a sporting chance of 
being seen and saved. Every valve was screwed 
down and every ounce of pressure raised that 
could be put on her, though it far exceeded the 

140 


Ghosts 

official limit of her aged boiler. To blow up is 
a seaman’s risk anyhow and was accepted natu¬ 
rally. If it had been only a question of a couple 
of miles ahead it w T ould have been all right, 
for she flew along as in the best days of her 
youth before the wind and sea, responding, 
like the heroine she was, to her crew’s SOS 
call for help. But the mountains of water were 
higher than ever, and at times the old carrier 
fairly buried herself, after jumping off the 
top of the combers into the chasms that 
opened beneath her. In those troughs every¬ 
thing was lost sight of, but each time that 
she climbed the top of some extra lofty sea 
they caught sight of what might mean safety 
to them, if only they could attract atten¬ 
tion in time. Every man was praying that 
the stranger might be a tramp, just a “ten- 
knotter” or so. Then they could surely make 
her. But just as soon as her four spars topped 
the horizon they knew that she was a large 
liner bound for the old country, and that there 
was no chance for them, for every second she 
was leaving them farther astern. The thought 

141 


Northern Neighbors 

of the comfortable cabin, the warmth, and the 
hope of rest and food on board her sent them 
down realizing almost for the first time that 
they were shivering and hungry though they 
had been soaked from head to foot ever since 
the first sea came aboard. It was a hard thing 
to go down below again into that dark and 
clammy engine-room. Every skylight had 
gone, and the holes had been blocked up, ex¬ 
cluding almost all the light. To make it worse 
they had to draw the remnants of the fire to 
save a few shovelfuls of ashes in case they 
were to get one more chance for life. 

Another night went by. Their food had 
long since given out, and their only drink was 
some sickly hot water which they had con¬ 
densed in the engine, and with it the tiniest 
allowance of wet flour made into a stodgy 
dough, though they had left the tea leaves in 
the kettle, as it seemed to make them feel 
“ just a little homelier/’ That day they burned 
the hawser and some cables. They chopped 
them up in chunks, and put a little engine oil 
and kerosene on to help them burn. The corn- 

142 


Ghosts 

panion ladder, locker and drawers, and the 
rest of the lining of the deck were also fed 
to the flames, and this fuel was helped out 
by the life belts and buoys, of which there 
were a hundred that had been carried 4 4 for 
the protection of passengers.” “With a drop 
o’ kerosene on them, they helped something 
wonderful.” 

The fifth morning things looked worse than 
ever. The ship was now a thousand miles 
from home, and fifty miles out of the track 
of transatlantic traffic. There were exactly 
twelve small potatoes left, and a pint of engine 
oil, and 44 not a sup more.” And yet though 
there had been no sleep for any one and all 
hands were wet through not a soul could be 
called sick. The morning inspection showed 
that the water was gaining faster on the pumps 
and that the ship was nothing now but an 
empty iron shell, already half filled with 
water. It seemed certain there was no longer 
any chance of help from a passing ship and 
that only death lay looming on the horizon. 

“Yes, I’m a praying man,” said Bill, 44 and 

143 


Northern Neighbors 

I reckon us all had done a bit o’ praying — to 
ourselves, o’ course,” he corrected, for no man 
had taken a minute to go to his bunk in all 
those days and nights. 

They could only still go on running, or 
rather drifting now, and every minute drove 
them farther from any hope of being seen. 
But suddenly there was a shout from the 
watch, which was repeated a moment later. 
Below they could tell by the change in the 
motion of the ship that something had hap¬ 
pened, and they guessed that the skipper was 
taking a last desperate chance. He had altered 
their course ever so little, and the ship was no 
longer directly before the seas. “ I knowed to 
once that he had sighted some vessel,” said 
Bill in telling me the story. “I was up so 
quick, I forgot that the ladder was burned, 
but there, running off the wind and coming 
right up after us was a large barkentine. Where 
she could be bound for on this course God only 
knew. Yet she had all the sail she needed aloft 
and was running with her sheets free, as if she 
had orders to cruise round the world and keep 

144 


Ghosts 

out of sight o’ land, else she must have been 
sent to look for we.” 

What could have led her to run like that 
when she had the whole Atlantic to cruise in? 
Why had she chosen in tens of thousands of 
miles of ocean to take exactly the very identi¬ 
cal line along which a poor lone wreck like theirs 
was hurrying to her doom. They had been so 
long hopeless, and their strength was so far 
spent that they took it they must all be <c see¬ 
ing t’ings”— or that the vision must really 
be a phantom ship. 

“I hadn’t been on deck for more than a 
minute at any one time before,” explained 
Bill, “and just then with our head even a 
bit across the troughs, if I had thought of it 
I should have known that any second a sea 
might make a clean sweep of us. The ragged 
bottom of the spot where our funnel had stood 
before it was carried away was enough to send 
any man in his senses down off deck in that 
weather. But I was seeing a ghost, though it 
had sails and spars, and was every minute 
drawing nearer. It held me fair scared to bits 

145 


Northern Neighbors 

with stiffness. It wouldn’t have been the first 
ghost I had seen neither, and I knew that the 
end had come one way or t’other. I knew 
I’d never go below again, down into that old 
rolling horror where I could hear the roaring* 
swish of water even from where us stood on 
deck. If this thing was real it would mean life; 
but if not, I reckoned that anyhow now I had 
a right to be drowned fair and square in t’ 
open.” 

The tattered remnant of the old flag was still 
upside down in the main rigging, but signal 
flags they had none, having burnt them with 
all the other gear. Closer and closer the stran¬ 
ger came, passing so near that it seemed for 
a moment as if she intended cutting down the 
derelict. But she made no sign aloft, only 
a man’s head appeared over the rail. They 
seemed to be shouting something as they 
passed. But not a sound of any kind met 
their ears. On she’went and it seemed then for 
all the world as if she was just sent by the devil 
to torment dying men. Suddenly down went 
her helm, up she shot into the wind’s eye, over 

146 


Ghosts 

went her yards, and like some gladsome bird 
she came dancing back over those tremendous 
seas, evidently trying this time to pass close 
under the steamer’s lee. “Us thought now she 
wanted to tell us something and because us had 
hoisted no flags, knew that she could not talk 
to us in the usual way.” But to these desperate 
seamen, dazed with exposure and privation, it 
still seemed she must be either a real ghost or 
a figment of their own imagination. Three 
times she circled round them, and though now 
they had gotten up a megaphone on deck, in 
the roar of the sea there was no distinguishable 
meaning to their shouts. Suddenly a three 
flag hoist broke out from her halyards. Surely 
she must be real now, though “our code book, 
having gone into the flames, it could not help 
us to make out their meaning. All us could do 
was to climb into the rigging and wave to her. 
She had also now hoisted her red ensign, and 
us knew she was an English ship and was going 
to stand by.” 

Seeing that he could not make them under¬ 
stand what he wanted, the skipper of the 

147 


Northern Neighbors 

stranger took the only remaining chance, ran 
under their stern, passing within a few yards 
and almost clipping it off, and managing to 
convey to them that they had lost their boat, 
and that the shipwrecked crew must launch 
theirs. Then once more he was gone to lee¬ 
ward, and so lay “hove to,” evidently ordering 
us to launch and drift down to him. 

It is one thing to say “launch a boat” in a 
sea like that, from a small steamer, but unless 
“the good Lord intended that you should do 
it” it cannot be done. It was with almost 
spiteful joy that six life belts saved from the 
insatiable fires below were dragged up on deck. 
If they must be lost, at least it lent fresh de¬ 
termination to win out, to think that they 
were cheating the hungry fangs of old Neptune, 
just when he thought he had them. For the 
first time the skipper left the bridge, and com¬ 
ing down, “told we to put ’em on, as coolly as 
if us were alongside the dock at home.” 

The boat was lashed in gripes on the deck 
house. It was no use trying to swing her out 
and lower her with falls. She would have been 


148 


Ghosts 

smashed to atoms against the rail before one 
man could get in her and fend her off. There 
was only one chance to get her clear — they 
must put the ship in the trough, fasten the best 
line left, and plenty of that, to the boat, and 
then when the steamer took her first plunge, 
even if she rolled over, chop away the fasten¬ 
ings and let her fall or be washed clear. 

Every man was in his place, the axes were 
given to three men, one to each gripe, and the 
others were to stand by on the house-top and 
just fall into the boat when the time came if 
they could. “As I thinks on it now I’ most 
sees there were no chance,” continued my old 
engineer. “How it all happened anyhow, I 
don’t know. The last thing I saw was the 
derrick boom which came overboard after us 
like an old friend. It was the only thing which 
we hadn’t burnt, and that was because she 
were too tough for us to chunk her up.” 

As the steamer came broadside to the sea 
a great mountain of water threw her almost on 
to her beam ends. The gripes were cut out as 
she was falling over, and when she staggered 

149 


Northern Neighbors 

up there was the lifeboat, right side up in that 
sea, at the very end of the hawser they had 
made fast to her. Suddenly she came taut on 
the spring. It gave her one great tug, and be¬ 
fore they had time to think she was alongside 
and six of the crew were shooting into her like 
falling off a house-top. It was easy “ because 
now us knew we was to be saved. The old 
boom bumped into us on a sea as if to say good¬ 
bye while us were getting straightened out.” 
As they drove astern of the wreck they found 
the stranger close to, waiting for them and a 
great lake of water calm under his lee. He 
was pouring out oil from a bag run out on the 
end of a spinnaker boom, like the man in 
“Pilgrim’s Progress.” 

There is not much more to this yarn — be¬ 
cause they had not been missing long enough 
for wives to have married again, before they 
wired home. But there really was something 
mysterious about the ship that saved them. 
The captain proved a recluse like Captain 
Nemo of Jules Verne’s “Nautilus.” He was 
silent and almost invisible. He made no frills 

150 


Ghosts 

nor fuss to celebrate the saving of six human 
lives. Indeed he seemed almost to resent it. 
It was late one night when at last the destitute 
crew were landed — and when daylight broke 
the next morning all traces of the rescue ship 
had vanished. 


GREEN PASTURES 


Yes, sir. ’Tis uphill work tryin’ to get ahead 
when you has a hard family — but, bless the 
Lord, he have always brought me through. 

I were only a slip of a lad when father and 
brother Tom were lost in the Glad Tidings, 
and I had to fend for mother and the two girls. 

No, there were no insurance on Bay craft 
in them days, and all us had to look to was t’ 
hook and line. You supposes us saw bad times? 
Well, no — bless the Lord — He never ’lowed 
us to want a bit t’ eat, though it were hard 
enough to reach to clothing on times. 

Like most fishermen, I married real young, 
and soon a lot of toe-biters began to come 
along, and it were hard enough then to keep the 
bread box full — that is, on times. 

I was shareman them days with my Uncle 
Rube, but it were uncertain work, and if I 
hadn’t done well with my traps furring, it 
would have gone hard wi’ us some winters, 
I’m ’lowing. 


152 


Green Pastures 

So in b’tween times I hauled out the wood 
to build a fishin’ skiff of my own, and some o’ 
t’ neighbors lent me a hand ariggin’ of her out. 
It weren’t altogether that us earnt more — 
but it left me ne’er an idle hour, and you 
knows, sir, that when a man has women folk 
a’pending on him, he wants to be at some¬ 
thing all the time, if it’s only to keep his mind 
quiet. 

Well, sir, t’ fish began to fail round home 
afore our oldest lad could hold a paddle, and 
all who could used to pack off to Labrador 
every June month and bring back t’ fish they 
caught in t’ fall o’ the year. But Mother were 
that feeble ever since the shock o’ Father’s 
death, I couldn’t make out to leave her. For 
you sees, sir, it wasn’t as if us knowed what 
had happened to the Glad Tidings. Her just 
sailed out t’ the grounds, and never corned 
back. 

Mother never would believe she were lost, 
for ne’er a chip o’ the vessel were found to tell 
us what happened, and she were as staunch as 
good wood and good work could make her. 

153 


Northern Neighbors 

Ice it were, I ’lows, for in the dark you can’t 
see one of them northern growlers when them’s 
just* level wi’ the water — not even if so be 
you’se be looking right at ’em. Father were a 
driver, too. Bless yer, sir, he never thought 
no more o’ danger than he did o’ nothing. 
Ice it were. Ice sure enough, I ’lows. 

Till long after open water Mother used to 
be up early and late awatchin’ and awatchin’ 
for the Glad Tidings. And, poor as us was, t’ 
light never went out o’ our window from dark 
to daylight all that winter through. “ You’se 
never knows, Johnny,” her used to say, ‘‘the 
Lord may be gracious to we yet.” 

The first season after she were taken us all 
went down to Labrador in my Uncle Rube’s 
schooner, the Ready and Go. 

We was sorry to close our house, for it were 
all us had, but o’ course Mary weren’t will¬ 
ing for me to go wi’out her and the children. 
And, indeed, a man needs a ’ooman to help 
make his fish and cook his food if he is to do 
anything what’s worth while, alone, that is 
“crosshanded” us calls it. 


154 


Green Pastures 

We was eager to be down early so’s to be 
ready by when t’ fish first set in, and there was 
still a deal o’ floe ice about after us rounded 
Cape St. John. The Ready and Go was just 
packed full o’ people beneath decks. For there 
were, first o’ all, a load o’ salt in her, and then 
bar’ls o’ flour and pork and molasses, and nets 
and ropes and boxes, all covered over wi’ old 
sails, and then the women and children on the 
top. For they never comes on deck at sea. 
There ain’t no room for ’em anyhow, even if 
’em wants to. Us men just sleep’d anywhere. 

It were my first night o’ the Labrador, and 
I has nothing to say ag’in them old rocks. 
Them’s served me good these many a year, 
though us has had our bad times like t’ rest. 

There was lots o’ tag ends dangling from our 
planks afore us reached our harbor that year 
from scudding through the ice. Yes, and there 
were plenty o’ ice candles ahanging from our 
bows, too, before us left for home again. Well 
I minds it, for it were the only October fish 
I ever carried from t’ Labrador. But us was 
eager for every tail, and the fish held on late. 

155 


Northern Neighbors 

Aye, and the Lord prospered us, too, for us 
never wet an anchor on the journey back, 
’cept what us wetted on the vessel’s bow. 
No, not till us was right off our own home 
again. 

Come spring again, us sawed ’round the 
Ready and Go early in May, and hove her 
down to caulk her, wi’ our trap boats full o’ 
ballast slung from her mastheads. Then us 
cut a channel through the standing ice wi’ our 
pit-saws, and so was among the very first ves¬ 
sels to start down North. Us fell in wi’ the floe 
in Green Bay, but ’twere only in strings, so 
Uncle Rube were for standing on and chanc¬ 
ing it, and there were none o’ us youngsters 
to say him nay. 

Well, sir, we was running free wi’ a smart 
sou’west wind, when about midnight us struck 
a big pan fair and square, and t’ following sea 
drove us right over it, or I don’t know how 
’t would have gone wi’ us. Careful us was sure 
enough after that, for her timbers was shaken 
enough to frighten some o’ us. But, in spite 
o’ all our care, just before dawning the only 

156 


Green Pastures 

passage us could see ahead was between two 
great growlers. The ice was tightening up be¬ 
fore the breeze, and just as us was passing 
between them, clip they goes. The women 
had just time to jump on to one of them pans, 
as they was — right out o’ bed — and us was 
landing a bit o’ grub and an old sail, when down 
she goes, stern foremost. 

Yes, it were cold enough, floating about 
there, but that wasn’t the worst. For just after 
sunrise our pan split right in two, and went 
abroad wi’out a moment’s warning, so that 
us parted from the women and lost our only 
boat, too, and then had to watch ’em all day 
drifting right away from us. But, praise the 
Lord, it kep’ fine and sunny all day, and the 
sun off the ice were that hot us was well 
warmed up afore night. There be scarcely any 
night down there that time o’ year, and in the 
morning a whole fleet o’ vessels hove in sight, 
reaching along wi’ a mild sou’west wind — 
scarcely a open track but there were a vessel 
in it — and it weren’t long before us was all 
picked up as hearty as us could wish. 

157 


Northern Neighbors 

Yes, us lost that summer on the Labrador, 
but there were fish in somehow close to the old 
home, and I wouldn’t be saying us didn’t do 
nigh as well as if us hadn’t lost the old Ready 
and Go. Indeed, when us came to count up at 
Christmas, there were plenty and to spare to 
carry us through t’ winter, wi’ ne’er a hungry 
day neither, so you can guess it were a glad¬ 
some family what gathered that blessed day. 

Well, sir, it weren’t till my three lads grew 
to be stout boys that us began to get ahead 
and to lay a bit by ag’in bad times. But when 
them three could handle a line apiece, and us 
had two boats to the fishery, us began to think 
about gettin’ a schooner for ourselves. O’ 
course it meant a bit o’ pinching and o’ stint¬ 
ing, but at last us come to terms wi’ our 
merchant i’ the bay to get us a schooner, if us 
could find three hundred dollars and the gear. 
What a winter that were! Us netted a ter¬ 
rible big trap, besides all t’ other work, and it 
were a proud day wi’ us, sir, when at last us 
sailed out o’ the narrows on the Ocean Bride, 
all our own, sir. A big venture, though, for us 

158 


Green Pastures 

owed fifteen hundred dollars on her on t’ 
merchant’s books. 

We was to make the two trips, sir, like most 
o’ our vessels does, getting a load if us could in 
the Straits first, and carrying that home — and 
then going down North to the Labrador itself. 
We was as early as us dare be. You’se may 
be sure o’ that, and there were still more ’n a 
scattered bit o’ ice about. However, the little 
vessel handled like a fairy, and all went well till 
us had rounded Cape Bauld and had it all open 
as it were, wi’ the Straits fishery right before 
us, for the floe ice were all off the last coast line, 
and the Straits were as clear as us could wish 
’em. I was at the tiller myself, and Bob were 
for’ard on t’ lookout for ice, for he had eyes 
like a lynx, Bob had. There weren’t more’n a 
capful o’ wind a-blowin’, when plump! We 
hits a small piece o’ ice under our lee bow. It 
were that small above water that even Bob 
never seed un, and us took no more notice of 
un till there comes a great bawling from the 
women as the water was rusliin’ in below, and 
up they all tumbles on deck. Such a scramble 

159 


Northern Neighbors 

in the dark may I never see again, please God! 
It seemed a sharp spike o’ ice as hard as a bit 
o’ rock had found a soft spot in one of our 
planks, and we was already going down head 
foremost. 

In a few seconds us had our trap boat arid 
fishing punts in the water and all our women 
safely stowed. Then it were a downright race 
to try to save the new big trap net. Not a 
moment too soon, either, for as us hauled up 
the last piece o’ the twine, the Ocean Bride 
took a big plunge and disappeared beneath the 
waves. The sea and ice once more had the 
best o’ us. 

It seemed just a bit hard at first, but it were 
that cold and wet, and us had it that hard 
to make the land that there weren’t much 
time to think o’ it, and we was wonderful glad 
at last to get by a fire in a cottage on the 
land. 

The very next morning an ice-hunting 
steamer that had been down to the Labrador 
with a number o’ crews came right in and of¬ 
fered to take us home. It did appear as we was 

160 


Green Pastures 

going aboard, with everything gone, as if con¬ 
siderable had corned against us. But would you 
believe it, that steamer had to call into a har¬ 
bor only a dozen miles to the southward, and 
there lying off the end of a wharf lay a schooner 
twice as large as our Ocean Bride, all ready to 
put to sea. Well, sir, you may b’lieve me or 
not, as you likes best, but though the kettle 
was on the stove and the very sails up adryin’, 
there were no crew aboard her, only an ole 
man awatchin’ of her, for the owner hadn’t 
quite settled where he were going to send her 
for the summer. Well, sir, our skipper were 
acquainted with her owner, and he just up and 
says: “I tell you what, Captain, I’se minded 
just to go ashore on chance and see if I can’t 
get you that vessel for the summer.” Now the 
Lord must have planned it, for the steamer 
couldn’t ’a’ stopped half an hour even await¬ 
ing, so there were the owner right on the very 
wharf hisself. When our skipper had told him 
all about our accident, and, what’s more (see¬ 
ing I was a stranger and had no money), had 
promised to pay a hire for her hisself if so be I 

161 


Northern Neighbors 

should miss t’ fish, the owner he seems a bit 
puzzled at first. “ You see, Captain,” he says, 
“I ought by rights to speak to the boys first, 
for I’ve just shipped a crew to send her after 
a load o’ lumber. But, seeing as how it all 
seems arranged almost wi’out my being so 
much as asked, I supposes I must let her go,” 
and wi’ that he takes me by the hand and says: 
“You take her, skipper.” 

Two days later us sailed off again intending 
to go to the Straits. But as the time were run¬ 
ning up, us just went right down on to the 
Labrador instead o’ heading away down west 
after all the other craft; and that fair saved us, 
for the Straits fishery proved a failure, and the 
early craft on t’ Labrador all did well. Though 
the new vessel was so large, and us had only 
the small crew, us got a full fare, sir, chock- 
a-block, and were home and sold it before 
September month were half runned out. When 
us came to count up again we was able to clear 
off the Ocean Bride and lay the keel o’ the fine 
vessel what you sees we in now. 

And so, Doctor, many’s the day I has 

162 


Green Pastures 

thanked God for having taken to hisself the 
craft what was harder for me to part with 
than any that ever sailed salt water. I ’lows 
he know’d all along as how he were really 
“aleadin’ me through green pastures.” 


TWO NIGHT WATCHES 

It was transition time with us. The long 
winter frost, with but one day’s thaw since 
Christmas, had collapsed like a house of cards 
with the advent of May. 

The splendid ice bridges over the great bays 
had been shattered by the heavy Atlantic 
rollers, which were now permitted to heave 
home to the rocks, as the wind had driven the 
floe ice far off shore. 

The hard, smooth roads of beaten snow over 
the barrens were made impassable by jagged 
points of rocks, which everywhere now jutted 
out through them. 

The universal roofing of ice and snow which 
all winter covered the patches of impenetrable 
scrub would no longer support the weight of the 
dogs or sleigh. Even the ice on the numerous 
lakes had become unsafe, while foaming tor¬ 
rents replaced the level stretches along the 
river-beds which form our highways in the 
winter months. 


164 


Two Night Watches 

No traveling on the land was any longer 
possible. Even skis and snow racquets had 
ceased to be of service, and were hanging neg¬ 
lected on the walls. The komatiks had been 
shellacked and stowed away on their lofts till 
next fall’s snow should make them useful again. 
Our faithful dogs were already barred into a 
large enclosure fenced with wire, so that the 
hospital cow, cooped up in its stable for nearly 
six months, might come out and search for a 
precarious living amidst the fast disappearing 
patches of the winter’s snow. 

Traveling by water offered but little better 
facilities, for the running ice floes from the dis¬ 
tant north everywhere covered the sea, and 
threatened with the least veering of the wind 
to the eastward to blockade the coast in an 
incredibly short space of time. It is not well 
to be nipped between the ice floe and the rocks. 
There’s no good arguing the matter with an 
ice floe, unless you are prepared to come off 
second best. 

So we were fain to stand by the hospital for 
the time, and were not sorry, after months of 

165 


Northern Neighbors 

incessant traveling with dogs, to enjoy a 
“spell” and limit our efforts to the patients 
whom we had at hospital, and the people 
within a mile or two radius from it. 

“There’s some men in the waiting-room to 
see you, Doctor,” said one of the maids, who 
had come up the hill to the spot where, with a 
crowd of young fellows, I was helping to clear 
some land of alders, and to root out old stumps. 
It was a preparatory effort to improve matters 
for our cow. 

“Is that so? Where are they from?” 

“ From the north, I think, Doctor.” 

“Well, tell them to wait. I’ll be down di¬ 
rectly. See that they get some tea and a bite 
to eat.” 

“Please, sir, they says it is very important, 
and they wants to hurry back right away.” 

When I reached the hospital I found that 
the new arrivals were making good progress 
with the tea, for work such as they had just 
been through converts this beverage into am¬ 
brosial nectar to our fisherfolk. It is the/cus¬ 
tom to offer it at all times of the day to 

166 



LOOKING FOR LEADS 












Two Night Watches 

any and all who may chance to visit the 
house. 

“What’s wrong, Nat?” I asked. “Some 
craft on the rocks, I suppose.” 

“ ’Tis Mark Rawson’s Aleck, Doctor. He be 
terrible bad. We’m come to see if you be so 
well pleased to come down along with us.” 

“Is he sick enough to die?” 

“Well, now, he h’ain’t knowed nobody since 
Saturday, and that be three days gone.” 

“How is the ice, Nat, coming up?” 

“ She be well off now. T’ wind canted off the 
land about midnight, and you’se can go right 
down straight.” 

“ All right, Nat. You can start as soon as you 
like. I’ll come along after you in the motor 
launch.” 

The medicine chest that travels with our 
dog sleigh in winter is marked in large let¬ 
ters, “Lend-a-hand.” It stands ready for 
duty all spring until the sea is open, and 
forms the movable dispensary during that time 
on the boats. We were not long making our 
preparations, therefore, and were soon bowl- 

167 


Northern Neighbors 

ing along “northward ho,” a fine breeze fol¬ 
lowing us. 

As the wind continued to freshen and the 
night closed in very thick, we at last deter¬ 
mined to heave to, and make a harbor some 
two miles to the southward of our patient’s 
home. It was already late before we had 
walked across an intervening neck of land, 
and as we approached the house it was getting 
on toward midnight, and so dark that when 
at last we reached the promontory opposite 
the island on which the house was stationed, 
we almost fell over the fisherman father who 
had been patiently waiting there on the off 
chance that we might possibly come by the 
mainland, as we could not reach around by sea. 

“I suspicioned you might come this way, 
Doctor,” he remarked. He meant that he had 
been praying earnestly that we might attempt 
to push on by the land. 

A little wooden cottage was perched on a 
rocky ledge under the aegis of huge, almost 
overhanging cliffs. The scanty foreshore fell 
straight down into deep blue water, so that we 

1G8 


Two Night Watches 

stepped almost from the boat into the house. 
A strong feeling came over one that Nature 
was anxious to shoulder out all human life 
from the place. 

When we opened the door to enter, the sub¬ 
dued light of a dimly burning kerosene lamp, 
small enough at the best of times, was just 
sufficient to show me a crowd of people sol¬ 
emnly huddled together in the tiny room that 
served as both kitchen and parlor. It was a bad 
omen, I knew, for when any one is thought to 
be sick unto death on this Coast, just such a 
lugubrious, silent crowd gathers to “see the 
end.” 

On a low, rude table at one end of the room 
was a bundle of heterogeneous bedclothes, and 
on this, visible to all, lay the body of a beauti¬ 
ful little boy of four years — a regular curly- 
haired, rosy-faced fisher lad. 

The weeping mother rose as I entered, and 
with one hand covering her eyes with her 
handkerchief, as if she did not wish to see the 
sight, led me over to the child’s side without 
speaking. 


169 


Northern Neighbors 

There was a perfect stillness in the room. 
No one spoke a word. Only the stertorous 
breathing of the sick boy broke the silence as I 
bent over him to form some idea of the trouble 
with which I had to deal. 

“How long since he knew you?” I asked, 
obliged to lay my hand on the mother’s shoul¬ 
der to call her attention. 

Waiting in vain to stem the tears which she 
sought hard to restrain, she sobbed out at 
last: “Not since Saturday, Doctor. My own 
boy didn’t know me.” 

Only a cursory examination was necessary to 
satisfy me that the only chance for the child’s 
life, and a faint one at that, lay in an im¬ 
mediate operation. It would involve the re¬ 
moval of a portion of the skull, and would be 
quite impracticable unless I could get him to 
hospital. 

At once the vision of the fifteen miles of 
angry ocean which lay between us, and the 
thought of a child in this condition tossed 
about in our small boat, prevented my saying 
what I thought. It seemed a pity to suggest 

170 


Two Night Watches 

that any means might save the boy if one had 
only to add that that means was not available. 

I was roused, however, from my brief 
reverie by a sudden consciousness that the 
mother was watching me, and even through her 
tears was trying to read for herself the truth 
which she seemed to be conscious already that 
I was intending to withhold from her. 

She spoke first. ‘‘What is it, Doctor?” 
She had looked up, and I seemed to see in her 
face a courage that I had thought she did not 
possess. My mind was made up in an instant. 

“There’s only one hope I can offer you, 
Myra, and even that is slight. If he were my 
boy I should at once take him to the hospital.” 

A still more absolute silence seemed to fall 
immediately on the room; so silent, you could 
almost feel it. For all these kindly mean¬ 
ing friends were also hanging on the Doctor’s 
words, and again the loud, measured breathing 
of the unconscious lad, like the ticking of some 
great clock, was alone audible. 

At length an older woman, rising from her 
seat, came over to where we were standing, 

171 


Northern Neighbors 

and taking the hand of the poor mother, en¬ 
couraged her to grasp even this forlorn chance. 

A little pause and then, with an energy and 
directness I had little expected, she looked me 
bravely in the face and said, “I will, Doctor; 
anything and anywhere to save my darling/’ 

“ No one can certainly promise to give you 
Aleck’s life. All we can say is that so far as we 
know the hospital offers him his only chance 
for life.” 

“Then I’ll come,” she said eagerly. “When 
shall we start?” 

It was dark as pitch outside, and we had 
yet to snatch some sleep. So we arranged to 
return and find shelter in a cottage near our 
boat, and that a party should be told off to 
bring the mother and child to us soon after 
daylight. 

Once again we were on the mainland, and 
the deep, broad arm of the sea separated us 
from the house of sorrow. As I stumbled 
along over the rocky path, recent events kept 
revolving in my mind. W T hy cross that separat¬ 
ing arm at all? Why seek trouble thus natu- 

172 


Two Night Watches 

rally shut off, as it were? Why add to cares by 
bringing the sorrows of others voluntarily into 
our lives? What a relief to shake clear of it 
all in the cool night air that cleared one’s head, 
when at last we topped the brow of the hill — 
what a relief it would be to leave it all behind! 

Yet, no — one’s heart was going back over 
the water in the boat with that solitary father. 

There was a tiny light in one of the fisher¬ 
men’s houses. All the rest had gone to bed 
long ago. But I recognized that the window 
was that of a room I had twice occupied on my 
winter travels. As I expected, the door was on 
the latch, so, going in quietly, I went upstairs 
to find everything ready, because, as the good 
fellow explained in the morning, “I mis¬ 
trusted somehow, Doctor, you’se might like to 
come back over night.” 

The little party with the child arrived be¬ 
fore we were even stirring — though in truth 
they needed sleep far more than we did. The 
wind had come in from the southeast and was 
dead ahead, and though nothing was said, we 
all knew that the sea voyage in the small 

173 



Northern Neighbors 

launch would be anything but pleasant. The 
mother was seated in the small scuddy, well 
propped up with boards, to keep her from be¬ 
ing thrown about by the pitching and rolling 
of our little craft. The unconscious child, in 
heavy wraps, lay across her knee. A tarpaulin 
was fixed in a small frame to keep the flying 
water and the wind off, as much as possible. 
Steering myself involved standing close to 
them, and I could keep an eye on how they 
were getting on. During the first hour the 
mother, who was very seasick, often caught 
my eye, and though she several times assured 
me she desired no help, I learned without any 
doubt that her strength and energy were being 
taxed to the utmost. 

“You need some help. Let me take Aleck 
for a bit. You can lie down on the locker, and 
perhaps you’ll feel better.” 

“No, thank you,” she replied, and bent 
down, crooning over the child as before. 

Another hour had passed away. As yet she 
had not uttered another word. The sudden 
and violent jumping of our boat in the head 

174 


Two Night Watches 

sea must have shaken her all to pieces. Yet 
all she said was, “Is it very far still?” 

“No; that is St. Anthony Head on our bow. 
We should have been round it by now, but for 
this seaway. Won’t you let me take the boy for 
a bit now? You shall have him back when we 
get into the smoother water around the head.” 

“I can hold on a little longer, thank you,” 
and again she was crooning over her little lad. 

At length we were alongside the wharf. 

Though strong and willing arms offered to 
bear the burden, the mother would trust it to 
no one till she laid it in the hospital, and our 
good nurse was allowed to put it to bed. 

A few hours, and the operation was over, and 
by nightfall the little child was back in his bed 
once more. The pressure on his brain had been 
relieved. He even spoke, and in the mother’s 
eyes, as she came into the ward and bent over 
the bed, one could see the intensity of longing 
that he might still know her, and once more 
speak to her. Hope, indeed, burnt fiercely in 
all our hearts for a time that even yet this little 
life might be given us. But He who loves the 

175 


Northern Neighbors 

children knew best, and toward dawn the tiny 
vital spark flickered out. 

When I ventured up to the ward again the 
violence of the first burst of sorrow had some¬ 
what subsided. The poor woman was sitting, 
as if exhausted, by the bedside, and yielded 
more readily than I had anticipated to the sug¬ 
gestion that she should go and take some rest. 

When everything had been gotten ready, I 
asked the broken-hearted mother if she would 
undertake the journey back in the launch 
wdth her sad burden. I was prepared to for¬ 
give an hysterical rejoinder, but she spoke 
calmly, even cheerfully. “No, Doctor, thank 
you, it is more than I could face now. I’ll wait 
for the first mail steamer next week, if I may.” 

The stimulus of hope that had buoyed her 
up on the previous voyage had died out, yet 
no void had been left in its place. Her heart 
was filled with a peace that robs death of its 
victory. Like David, she knew that though the 
child should not return to her, yet she should 
surely go to him. 

The four days’ watch by the little coffin 

176 


Two Night Watches 

quite alone, as it were, fifteen miles from her 
home and friends, would have been a trying 
experience at the best of times. We were 
afraid that, worn out as she was, it would be 
torture to her. But she bore it bravely and 
when at length the great steamer came in and 
we shook hands, one felt that in spite of her 
bitter failure it was a song of triumph, and not 
a wail of despair, that was filling her soul. 
And it lessened the bitterness for us as she 
said: “Good-bye, Doctor, may God reward 
you for your kindness to me and mine.” 

In a little hospital like this, with a meager 
staff of one nurse and one doctor, when a 
serious case makes night watches a necessity, 
even a roving doctor can know what a quiet 
hour means. At sea, in the short season of 
open water, all is life and action on a night 
watch. The rolling vessel — the swinging com¬ 
pass — the changing courses — the straining 
of the eyes for ice and hidden dangers — 
all keep every faculty alert, and crowd every 
swiftly passing moment. 

177 


Northern Neighbors 

Here in the dim light, in the silent house 
surrounded by the even greater stillness of 
the intense cold outside, so that one can hear 
the frost at work under the chilly stars, the 
domination of the senses by the bustle of 
things is relieved, and one’s imagination goes 
aroaming. 

A bed had been moved temporarily into our 
smart white-enameled operating theater. A 
boy was in it. It was nearly four in the morn¬ 
ing, and I was sitting by his side. He was a 
fisherman’s only son, ten years old. After a 
severe operation on the abdomen he was mak¬ 
ing a brave fight for life. 

Hard by, in a neighbor’s little cottage, an 
anxious mother was waiting for the first streak 
of daylight, to get the news of her child. She 
had left her home, far away on the shores of the 
Straits of Belle Isle, to bring her only boy, 
Willie, hauled by a trusty dog team over these 
miles of snow — to the knife. 

It was a new world to her, for never 
before had she seen a hospital, nay, scarcely 
heard of one; even a doctor was a new 


178 


Two Night Watches 

experience. Hoping against hope, she had 
lingered long before at length she ventured 
forth to what, in her mind, might be death 
to her only son. It was a supreme effort of 
faith. 

The telltale thermometer warned me that 
the temperature of the boy had risen one de¬ 
gree — and there was a slight flush about the 
cheek — the pulse rate had reached a hundred. 
The boy was drowsy from a dose of morphine, 
given because he must not move at any cost. 
In spite of it, he was restless between short 
snatches of sleep. He had to be closely watched. 

A patient coughing noisily in the next ward 
— there was only a wooden partition between 
us — had awakened him. He asked for a 
drink. Two teaspoonfuls of cold water was all I 
dared give him for the next twenty-four hours. 
He must have no more at one time — Thank 
God, he was asleep again. 

After all, what did it matter? He was only 
a fisherman’s boy from the wilds. Who would 
care if a hundred such were carried seaward 
to-morrow, as they go seal-hunting on the ice 

179 


Northern Neighbors 

floes? Who would care in the busy world out¬ 
side, steeped in its own anxiety and cares — 
mindful only of its own joys and sorrows? It 
was cut off from us by wastes of ice and snow 
from this lone land, so that even the story 
could only reach their ears after the event was 
almost forgotten. Who would care? — who 
should care? 

Here in this silent night watch, with no one 
to speak to, one’s thoughts went flying now 
across the sea — to my home in England. It 
was peace and quiet there. If I was only there, 
I need not see these things, need take none of 
these responsibilities. Then, at least, I should 
get rest from this gnawing anxiety for a child 
whom I never saw till yesterday — and of 
whom once I could have said, “He is nothing 
to me.” 

There was a stir in the bed. It made me drop 
my pencil, and a queer feeling rushed through 
me, as I saw that Willie’s large brown eyes 
were open and evidently fixed on me. How 
closely he seemed to have been watching me! 
Surely he could not have known my thoughts? 

180 



Two Night Watches 

No. It was the loneliness of the night that made 
one foolishly credulous. 

Thank God, he only asked for another drop 
of cold water — and for a pillow to be moved 
because already he was “so tired of lying.” 

Why all this restlessness? Could there be 
something going wrong with the wound? 
Alas, it was the imperfect work of my own 
hand! What would I not have given for a 
consultation then — such as one got so readily 
in the old hospital at home! What price would 
I not have paid for the advice of some great 
physician! Alas, was even this wish born first 
of all from a desire for relief for myself, rather 
than to save the boy’s life — born of a desire 
to get rid of responsibility, and put it on the 
shoulders of any one willing to bear it? 

Thoughts of the past now flew hurrying 
through my brain. Surely one might have been 
better fitted. How many hours I lost when 
just the knowledge now needed so much might 
have been gained! How many — 

A dog started howling outside. He was 
instantly joined in piercing chorus by all my 

181 



Northern Neighbors 

four-footed friends, over twenty in number. 
Hundreds of miles they had carried me across 
hill and dale, over sea and land, mid snow and 
ice. Now, out on the snow in this bitter cold, 
with only the stars overhead, they were con¬ 
tentedly making their beds this night. Few 
pleasures, as we know them, ever fell to their 
lot. Meat, in great frozen blocks, was the best 
food they knew of, and that was often far 
too scarce. Yet, with every sign of affectionate 
joy, they would come leaping up to greet me 
in the morning. In spite of everything they 
would be ready — yes, and more than eager 
to work for me again, and plod on at it till I 
had seen them drop dead, uncomplaining, in 
their very traces. 

They brought me back to the reality of 
things. They were an inspiration to lead me 
to the plain facts again. Here was I, with but 
poor talents, and here was this little lad. His 
life must be saved. I must save it. It must be 
done now, and I must do it. The time and 
place offered to no one else this opportunity 
to be the instrument. True, it is no greater, 

182 


Two Night Watches 

perhaps, than other opportunities, but then 
in reality all opportunities are great. Was I 
not even then expecting to hear the footfall 
of the child’s mother over the crisp snow out¬ 
side? Though scarcely daring to risk an an¬ 
swer, she was coming to ask me “the news.” 
Yes, the news — no news in the world was so 
important to her. 

What could I do? Thank God, the boy was 
quiet again now. For myself, I could almost 
feel the silence. Only the clock, ticking out¬ 
side, reminded me that the hand of time alone 
is never still. Was there anything more I 
could do? Anything? My worried brain gave 
me no help. Was it possible that the very 
friend I had been so keenly wanting was near, 
after all? Could my professional mind think 
of The Great Physician as of any real value in 
that prosaic operating-theater, as the “second 
opinion” I had been groaning for? Something 
within me resented the hope as merely a 
creation of my own desire. Prayer is not to 
replace action, and faith, without works, could 
not save this boy, I was certain. It might be 

183 


Northern Neighbors 

that here, on our very beam ends, His words 
“She hath done what she could 55 might mean 
“now is the time for me.” 

Three days passed. The crisis was over. 
The mother was sitting for a few moments 
by her boy’s bedside, her heart too full to 
speak. I saw her kiss him, and a tear fall on 
his face as she bent over him — so I closed the 
door and waited outside. 

After all, perhaps it was worth while. There 
is a feeling of wonderful joy in my own heart, 
I know, which I am certain gold trinkets and 
such things could never bring. 

Would it not be grand when cruising next 
summer to visit this boy at his home? What 
a happy meeting it would be! The approach to 
the harbor is narrow, and ofttimes dreadful, 
but this time it would be filled with the joy of 
anticipation. 


THE WRECK OF THE MAIL STEAMER 

The northwest coast of Newfoundland is no 
favorite with our seafarers in the fall of the 
year. The long straight rock-bound shore line 
for eighty miles in one stretch offers no shelter 
whatever even to the small vessels that ply 
to and fro along it in pursuit of their calling. 
Yet, as each spring great shoals of codfish 
frequent the cold waters of the north shore of 
the Gulf, just as soon as the breaking-up of the 
frozen sea permits it, swarms of fishing craft 
from all the Newfoundland coasts, and even 
from as far south as Gloucester, push their 
way “down North” in pursuit of the finny 
harvest. On the Newfoundland vessels women 
and children often come, the women helping 
to cure the fish and cook for the men, the 
children because they can’t be left behind. 

Uncle Joe Halfmast had not been north for 
some years, for he had never liked the sea, and 
like many another of our handy fishermen, he 
had developed great talents as a carpenter. 

185 


Northern Neighbors 

But this year, the people of Wild Bight were 
building a church, and had induced Uncle Joe 
to come down and lead them. It was a late 
season, the fall weather had been so wet and 
“blustersome,” that the men found it im¬ 
possible to dry their fish for shipment as usual, 
and were consequently late getting ready for 
the return south. Moreover the church had 
to be sheathed in before Christmas, so that 
when spring came round again, the work would 
not have to be done over again. 

The one little mail steamer which served 
three hundred miles of coast was unusually 
crowded with passengers and wrecked crews, 
and it had twice passed Wild Bight without 
calling on the southern journey owing to the 
impossibility of making the cove in the north¬ 
west gales. Indeed every inch of space aboard 
her had been already occupied long before she 
reached us. Thus for three long weeks we had 
been waiting for a chance to go south. Winter 
had set in in real earnest. Ice was making 
everywhere, and to offset our anxiety the whole 
cove was secretly rejoicing that we might be 

186 


The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

compensated by Uncle Joe having to spend 
the winter with us. He was justified a little 
by the fact that every one knew his attitude to 
rough seas, and that if he returned he had 
promised to take back with him Susie Carless’s 
derelict baby — a tiny piece of flotsam — 
with no natural guardian to “fare” for it, and 
near Christmas is no time for sending babies 
traveling round our northwest coast. Uncle 
Joe said nothing — he never did; and the 
church grew steadily under his hands. “I’m 
not worrying,” was always Uncle Joe’s motto. 
“I leave that to Him that watches over us,” 
he would add, if he was in a real talkative 
mood. 

So as a matter of fact no one was surprised 
when one day after Michaelmas a familiar 
fussy whistle broke the absolute silence of the 
harbor just at the first streak of dawn, and 
kept restlessly repeating itself as if to say, 
“Last chance — last chance — last chance for 
the year. Hustle, hustle, hustle.” Sorry as 
they were to lose him, all hands went to help 
Uncle Joe off, and give the baby those last 

187 


Northern Neighbors 

touches that only women’s hands are allowed 
“to be able for” on our Coast. 

The little vessel was crowded, for her accom¬ 
modation; badly overcrowded. But she was 
as fine a little sea vessel as money and human 
skill could make her and in many a gale of 
wind she had safely carried our friends. It was 
bitterly cold, the thermometer being actually 
away below zero, and our weather-wise people 
knew that something was brewing to wind¬ 
ward that boded no good to a small boat, how¬ 
ever staunch, with only our long miles of 
harborless coast under her lee. Some, at the 
risk of appearing self-interested, urged the old 
man to stay right on through the winter, and, 
with that unbounded hospitality that is so 
universal a characteristic of our northern 
people, were offering him a home, “baby and 
all.” But Uncle Joe’s philosophy is proof 
against any fears, indeed his faith is such real 
simple working material all through his life 
that the cynic calls it fatalism. So, as from 
those who saw St. Paul off on his long sea 
journey from the beach at Ephesus, not a few 

188 


The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

prayers went up for their loved friend and his 
helpless charge, as the little column of smoke 
once more disappeared into the sullen dark¬ 
ness that hung on the horizon under the south¬ 
ern sky, while the ominous soughing of the sea 
note on the rocks sent all hands back to make 
everything fast, even about the small homes 
on the land. 

The storm did not actually break till after 
dark that night but “slow come is long last” 
with us, and it will be still longer before the 
memory of that Christmas gale ceases to blow 
in our memories. The mail steamer was lost in 
it, violently blown out of the water on that evil 
coast. But these happenings are not strange 
in our world and we never got the story till the 
following year when one fine Sunday morning 
I happened to drop into young Harry Barney’s 
home, a little wooden cottage on the glorious 
sandy beach at L’Anse au Loup in Labrador. 
Harry was enjoying a morning pipe of peace, 
with his darky embryo vikings playing round 
the door. This was my reward for a Sunday 
visit. For it is as easy to catch a weasel asleep 

189 


Northern Neighbors 

as Harry with time to burn from midnight 
Sunday till the next Day of Rest comes round. 
A big liner had run ashore close to us only 
a week before, and was now an abandoned 
wreck lying well out of water on the north side 
of Burnt Island, so we fell to talking of wrecks, 
and the topic of the loss of our mail steamer 
came up. To my amazement he said, “Yes, 
I knows about her, Doctor, I was fireman 
aboard when she was cast away.” 

“You? What have you to do with steam¬ 
ers?” 

“Oh, they shipped me and poor Cyril Man- 
stock, as they couldn’t get men south. I’d 
acted runner before, but it was Cyril’s first 
voyage, and he died after of consumption, as 
you know. They says it was that chill did it.” 

“Tell us about it, Harry. We heard that a 
dog saved all hands by carrying a line ashore. 
I’ve been crazy to get the facts from an eye¬ 
witness.” 

“I wasn’t much of an eye-witness till we 
were high and dry, but I saw the dog do his 
bit, Doctor, and he certainly did it all right. 

190 


The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

It’s a long story,” he began, “but we knew 
below decks by six o’clock — that’s just at 
dark — that it would be a fight for life. What 
was left of our coal was all dust, and w T e’d had 
trouble keeping steam with it even in smooth 
water. We were anchored then, right on the 
straight shore, landing some freight for the 
village at Cowhead, and the wind was already 
rising and the sea beginning to make. My 
watch was from eight to twelve. But I was a 
new hand and wanted to give her every chance, 
so I went on at six to watch that the fires were 
kept clear and a good head of steam when we 
made a start. It did seem an awful time de¬ 
laying, and I wished a hundred times that we 
would throw that freight overboard. I guess I 
was a bit excited. But when at last the bell did 
go, we were all ready below. It was a hard 
fight, however, from the first. For the boat 
was small and we knew she couldn’t do much 
in a dead hard sea. Her propeller comes out 
and she races, and it’s no soft job trying to 
fire at the best of times. She wasn’t so bad 
first out in the spring either. But like every- 

191 



Northern Neighbors 

thing else, she had run down with hard usage, 
and at the end of the long season, she couldn’t 
do her best by a long way. However, as I said, 
we had a full head of steam, when the gong 
rang at last, and for a time it looked as if we 
might make it by standing right out to sea. 

“The fierce dust in the stokehole from the 
powdery coal, and the heavy and quick roll¬ 
ing soon made our eyes blind and our throats 
dry, and before my watch was out at mid¬ 
night I just had to go up for water. I found 
the doors were all sealed up with ice, so had 
to crawl out through a ventilator to get that 
drink. I hadn’t been up two minutes, it 
seemed, before the chief sent for me to hurry 
down again, as the steam was going back. I 
was only second fireman really on my watch, 
but the first, a Frenchman, who had been at it 
seven years, was an oldish fellow and was get¬ 
ting all in. At midnight watches were ealled, 
but both of us stuck to it, for in spite of all 
our efforts we were losing steam again. Water 
was now washing up over the plates of the 
engine-room, and we were wet and badly 

192 


The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

knocked about by the ship rolling us off our 
legs when we tried to shovel in coal. At two 
o’clock the old man gave in altogether and 
went up, and I never saw him again until it 
was all over. Cyril was in as trimmer, and he 
came in to help me. Every time I opened the 
fire-box door Cyril would grab me by the 
waist, and hold on hard, but in spite of it I 
got thrown almost into the fire one time by 
the ship diving as I let go to throw the coal in.” 
Harry here showed me a big scar across his arm 
and one on his face. “I got these that time,” 
he remarked, “just to remember her by. 

“The water was rising then in the engine- 
room and the pumps had got blocked, so we 
couldn’t pump it out. We didn’t think she was 
leaking, but we heard after some portholes 
had been stove in, and she took in water every 
time she rolled. We got the pumps to work 
again after a while. But the doors being frozen 
up above we had no way to get rid of our ashes, 
and they were washing all around in the 
engine-ro®m, and it was impossible to keep the 
runways clear. 


193 


Northern Neighbors 

“The worst of it was that now the water 
was in the bunkers and mixed up with the 
coal, making it into a kind of porridge. It was 
just like black mud to handle, and you couldn’t 
get it off the shovel until you banged the blade 
against the iron fire bars. 

“So steam began to drop again, and went 
so low that our electrics nearly went out and 
we got repeated orders from the bridge for 
more steam and more steam. It appears we 
were making no headway at all with only 
eighty pounds pressure, and in fact were slowly 
being driven sideways into the cliffs. We 
worked all we could, but things went from bad 
to worse, the water rose and splashed up 
against the fire-box making clouds of steam, 
so though the dust was laid, what with the 
steam and the darkness, and the long watch, 
we couldn’t keep her going. Moreover, it 
seemed as if we would be drowned like rats 
below there, and I tell you we wouldn’t have 
minded being on deck, cold as it was. 

“ We heard after that one of the stewards had 
been fishing on this part of the coast. He knew 

194 


The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

every nick and corner, and said there was 
a little sandy cove round St. Martin’s Cape, 
where a small head of rock might break the 
seas enough to let us land, for they knew on 
deck now that the ship was doomed. For my 
part I knew nothing but that, work as we 
would, the steam gauge would not rise one 
pound. Beyond that, what happened didn’t 
even interest us, we hadn’t time to worry about 
danger. One sea did, however, make us mad¬ 
der than others. Something had been happen¬ 
ing on deck. The heavy thumps like butting 
ice had reached us down below. It turned out 
to be the lifeboat that had been washed out of 
davits and went bumping all down the deck, 
clearing up things as it went. Anyhow some¬ 
thing came open and as we were getting coal 
from the lee bunkers a barrel full of ice water 
came through the gratings and washed us well 
down, sweaty and grimy as we were. Some¬ 
how that seemed to set my teeth again, and we 
had the satisfaction of seeing the steam crawl 
once more to one hundred pounds. The 
bridge must have got on to it at once and 

195 


Northern Neighbors 

have noticed we were making headway again. 
The fact was we were now rounding the Cape 
called Martin’s Head. We knew they knew, 
for they again called us for still more steam — 
thinking we had got the top hand. It so hap¬ 
pened that a long shoal known as the Whale’s 
Back was now the only barrier we had to 
weather. But till this spurt all hope of doing 
it had almost gone. Well, all I know is that 
suddenly there was a scrape — a bumpety, 
bumpety, bump, and then a jump that made 
us think we were playing at being an aeroplane 
— and then on we went as before. She was 
making water more rapidly now, but beyond 
that we knew nothing. It was rising now to 
our knees nearly, and any moment might 
flood the fires. We had actually been washed 
right over the tail end of the whale-back reef, 
the tremendous ground sea having tipped us 
right over, almost without touching. They 
say it was only ten minutes or so more to 
the end — it seemed hours. The motion had 
changed and we knew we were before the sea. 
Then suddenly there was a heavy bump, that 

196 


The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

made us shiver from deck to keel on, then she 
seemed to stop, take another big jump, and 
then do the whole thing once more. We were 
on the beach, and the water was flooding into 
the stokehole. Cyril had gone some time 
before, played out. I could see nothing for 
steam but waded towards the ‘alloway’ into 
the engine-room. There also everything was 
pitch dark but I knew by feeling which way 
to go. It seemed a long while, but at last I 
found the ladder, and made a jump to hustle 
out of the rising water. My head butted into 
something soft as I did so. It was our second 
engineer — he had been at his post till the end. 
There was only one chance now for escape. 
It was the ventilator. I was proud I had learnt 
that in the night. It did not take me long to 
shin up through it and drop on the companion 
clinging to the edge. The icy wind chilled me 
to the bone and sheets of spray were frozen 
over everything. A sea striking her at that 
moment washed right over me, but before the 
next came I was behind the funnel, hanging 
on for life to one of the stays. Another dive 

197 


Northern Neighbors 

between seas landed me in the saloon and from 
there I dropped down, and climbing to the 
foc’sle got some dry clothes.” 

“That’s all you know, I suppose?” 

“About all,” he answered, “ except that I 
had to go some miles when I landed to get 
shelter, and got no food till next night.” 

“Did any one thank you for your work?” 

“Not yet,” he answered with a smile. 

“What steam had she when you struck the 
last time?” I asked. 

“A full hundred pounds,” and a gleam of the 
joy that endures lit his eyes — that joy that 
assures us of the real significance of life. 

I was admiring the church at Wild Bight 
this fall — having blown in in one of our 
periodical medical rounds. Nothing was far¬ 
ther from my mind than the wreck of the pre¬ 
vious winter when suddenly I noticed the 
familiar features of dear old Uncle Joe peering 
at me from behind a pillar. In a moment I 
saw him again, leaving the harbor with his 
precious baby, and I wondered how it had all 

i 

ended. 


198 



THE WRECK OF THE MAIL STEAMER 









The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

“Well, you see, Doctor, about daylight the 
ladies’ cabin got flooded out and they were 
all driven out of that, all the passengers that 
could crowd into the little saloon on deck. 
The baby did not seem to mind it at all and as 
there was no use going on deck, even if we had 
been able, that’s where I took it. After we 
struck, however, and the seas were wash¬ 
ing partly over the ship, I went out to see if 
there were any chance for us. The Captain, 
who had never left the bridge, was there. His 
cheeks were all frost-bitten. He had already 
launched a boat and was trying to get some 
men landed. It was broad daylight, a little after 
midday, and we were right under a big cliff, 
so close that you could almost touch it. The 
projecting head of the cliff sheltered the fore¬ 
part of the vessel fairly well, but a thundering 
surf was beating on the beach. The boat was 
soon glad to be hauled in again. She was 
smashed and filled, and the men had been 
nearly lost. So we all fell to it, and tried to get 
a line ashore. There were men there now from 
the shore who had seen us. They were watch- 

199 


Northern Neighbors 

ing us from above the breakers, and evidently 
understood what we were doing. For when 
at last we flung the line into the water, they 
rushed down and tried to get it. But the back 
wash carried it always beyond their reach. 
One of them ran up to a cottage near by and 
came back with a jigger, and as the seas 
washed the rope along, tried to fling it over, 
and hook the line. But they somehow couldn’t 
do it. Then I suddenly saw there was a big 
dog with them, rushing up and down, and 
barking as they tried for the line. All of a 
sudden, after they seemed to have done their 
best and failed, the dog rushed down into the 
sea, held the rope in his teeth till the tide 
ran out, and then backed with it till the men 
grabbed it. They took the line up the cliff, 
and I helped rig a chair on it in which we 
tied the passengers, and so sent them every one 
ashore safely. No, I didn’t even get my feet 
wet myself. You see I had my rubbers on. The 
baby? Oh, I tied the baby up in a mail bag 
and sent him ashore by himself. They told me 
when they opened the bag to see what was in 

200 


The Wreck of the Mail Steamer 

it, the baby just smiled at them, as if it had 
only been having a bit of a rock in the cradle of 
the deep. We were home for Christmas after 
all. And somehow, Doctor, I had my mind 
made up to how it would be about that when 
I said good-bye to them that morning at Wild 
Bight. The folk all got together and gave that 
dog a hundred-dollar collar but the poor owner 
had to sell the dog, collar and all, a little later, 
to get food.” 


THE FIRST FROST OF WINTER 

The hospital steamer Strathcona had just ar¬ 
rived late one autumn off that Post of the 
Honorable the Hudson’s Bay Company which 
is halfway down the coast of Labrador. 

The order to “let go” had just been given 
to the men at the anchor, and I was preparing 
to go below after the excitement of bringing 
the ship to her moorings. Indeed, the chain 
was still running out through the hawsepipes, 
when a man, evidently in great anxiety and 
haste, pulled alongside and jumped aboard 
over our rail. 

“Oh, Doctor! T’ank God you’re here at 
last. Poor Alice has passed away yesterday, 
and John is lying terrible ill, and there’s the 
five little ones — and maybe you’re just in 
time.” 

“Come, come, Harry, what’s the matter? 
Is it a cough?” 

“It never stops, Doctor. Night nor day, 
and he spits terrible with it.” 

202 


The First Frost of Winter 

Now, we had seen some cases of pneumonia 
coming up the bay, so “I ’ll be with you in two 
minutes, Harry,” was all I stopped to say as 
I hurried below to get my emergency case of 
drugs. Without further conversation we pulled 
swiftly to a little wooded cove, and drew up 
the boat on the shore. Following him along a 
winding path through the stunted trees, I came 
soon to a tiny house where only a month be¬ 
fore I had seen one of the happiest Scotch 
families in the world. 

My good guide’s watchful young wife, a 
baby in her arms, opened the door as we 
reached it. 

“He’s sleeping, Doctor. Maybe he’ll take 
a turn now,” she said. “I’ve put the children 
to bed lest their bawling should waken him.” 

I knelt down in the darkened little room 
beside the sick man, and put my fingers on his 
pulse. The almost painful stillness was broken 
at length by the young mother, who was evi¬ 
dently watching my face. 

“Don’t say it’s too late, Doctor! Please 
God, he’ll get well now, won’t he?” and then 

203 


Northern Neighbors 

a stifled sob as she could read no hope in my 
face, for even as the moments ticked by on 
my watch the forefinger on the telltale pulse 
kept time, saying plainly, “Too late, too late, 
too late.” 

The issue was not long in the balance. Our 
effort to aid Nature in her last struggle awak¬ 
ened no response in the wearied body, and 
slowly the life we wanted so much to prolong 
ebbed away before our eyes. 

When I returned in the morning, the door 
was open, and the house stood silent and de¬ 
serted. Husband and wife in their rough 
spruce coffins were lying side by side in the 
little outer room. The children had gone with 
the kindly neighbors to their little home across 
the cove. Stillness reigned alone, except for 
two jays fluttering about the chopping bench. 
It seemed as if death’s victory were complete. 
During the day I was engaged with other pa¬ 
tients, but at sundown I heard Harry’s voice 
again on deck. 

“Doctor,” he said hesitatingly, “would you 
bury the dead? ’Tis ten miles to where 


204 


The First Frost of Winter 

we — our graves is — but we thought per¬ 
haps —” 

“ Indeed I will, and you may tell the people 
that the steamer will be starting at ten in the 
morning.” 

“Us’U never forget your kindness, Doctor/’ 
he said. Just as he was leaving the ship, how¬ 
ever, he came back once more, the painter in 
his hand 

“Doctor,” he apologized, “there isn’t a 
scrap of black for the children in the whole 
cove. Poor John has fallen behind a bit of late 
at the Post; and anyhow us never looked for 
this.” 

“They shall have all there is aboard, Harry. 
The women can make some things during the 
night out of it.” With that we dived below, 
and soon found coats and black stuff enough 
for the emergency. 

It was a sad cortege that next morning 
steamed up the fjord with the ship’s flags at 
half-mast. It was a poor, ill-clad group which 
gathered on our decks. The very care that had 
been so evidently bestowed upon garments 

205 


Northern Neighbors 

which had seen better days and other genera¬ 
tions, spoke most eloquently of the continual 
struggle with a hard environment. The bald, 
unornamented coffins, sawed from our gnarled 
and knotted trees, and blackened over with the 
meanest coat of paint, were evidences of the 
little that stood to help humanity in its fight 
for existence in this land, beyond their own 
stout hearts and good right hands. The real 
pathos, however, lay in the overwhelming sense 
of vanquished aspirations. The whole setting 
seemed to whisper uncannily to our poor 
friends standing round: “It’s only a matter 
of time. You must succumb soon. You can’t 
keep the fight up long.” 

The very weather added to the harmony of 
desolation. A cold bleak wind was chasing 
clouds burdened with snow from the unknown 
north across a cheerless leaden sky. The first 
frost of winter had hardened what little soil 
there was on those relentless rocks, as if anx¬ 
ious to proclaim that it had no share in lend¬ 
ing aid or offering a haven, even when death 
had done its work. Two ducks, sole occupants 

206 


The First Frost of Winter 

of the tiny bay, fled shrieking as we landed on 
the sandy beach. 

At length the grave was dug, the last look 
taken, the rude coffins lowered, the sand filled 
in, and only the few pitiful, half-clad mourn¬ 
ers were left shivering in the bitter blasts of 
wind that swept across the point, and weeping 
for what could never be undone. But in my 
mind were still ringing the words of triumph: 
“Thanks be unto God, which giveth us — us 
— the victory,” while before my eyes were the 
five little children in black, standing hand in 
hand by a lonely heap of sand, marking the 
spot where lay all that they knew as their pro¬ 
tection from the cruel world outside. 

“Will, take the children aboard and let 
them go down into the cabin, and see that 
Peter gets them some tea.” 

A long letter to friends at home asking them 
to help me with these, my first orphans, brought 
only a few answers. One was poorly written, 
and not altogether well spelled, but it bore a 
better recommendation than scholarship. It 
was obviously the loving letter of a good moth- 

207 


Northern Neighbors 

erly woman, and came from a heart in which 
dwelt the spirit of the Master. She wrote: 

“Dear Doctor: Me and my husband would 
like to keep a boy and a girl for the Lord’s 
sake,” and she gave me references to men 
whom I knew. So at the coming of the next 
winter’s ice, when we left the Coast and went 
south to put the ship into winter quarters, 
Malcolm and Lottie went with us to a new 
home in far-away New England. 

Twelve months later came a long-promised 
visit to the children. The train dropped me 
where the platform ought to have been, in the 
dark about four o’clock on a winter’s morning. 
Everywhere the snow lay deep on the ground. 
There were no houses to be seen, and the pros¬ 
pect was not encouraging. But soon I heard 
a cheery voice calling: “Doctor, is it you?” 
and a moment after I was climbing into a 
rickety farm sleigh, drawn by a patient old 
horse. It was driven by the new mother of 
the children, whose characteristic energy had 
brought her all these miles in the bitter night 
to meet me. 


208 


The First Frost of Winter 

A long and wearisome drive it would have 
been, for the roads were only called so from 
courtesy, and were not materially improved 
by the stupendous snowdrifts. Nor were the 
— well, springs of our carriage as resilient 
as — but there, never mind, the company of 
so simple and earnest a friend of the Master’s 
would make any journey short, and at its 
close the wild reception that the happy chil¬ 
dren gave me set my mind at rest once for all 
as to whether or not they were in the right 
place. 

Soon, however, I was to be puzzled again. 
For when morning dawned and I looked round 
the house, I found only a small group of new 
buildings. They were roughly put together, 
erected by the hands of this young couple 
themselves. The amount of reclaimed land 
was only small, and was being hewn out of the 
backwoods by their own indomitable pluck. 
Beyond that, at breakfast, I thought I heard 
a stranger’s voice, and sure enough I was soon 
introduced to “our own baby.” 

As I drove back to the station, my cheer- 

L 

209 


Northern Neighbors 

ful companion chatting away as before, my 
thoughts would materialize into words, and I 
asked: “What made you take two great, grow¬ 
ing children from far-off Labrador? Surely 
your struggle is hard enough without adding 
to it?” 

“Well, Doctor, you see, Fred and me has 
been two years ’way out here, and it seemed we 
couldn’t do anything for the Lord. There is 
no Sunday school to teach, and the church is 
so far away we seldom can go. So we just 
thought the farm would feed two more. No, 
no. I wouldn’t like you to take them back.” 


ABOVE THE BIG FALLS 

It was getting late and Donald Montague 
was sitting by the fire in the family’s winter 
home on the banks of the Auksalik River 
in North Labrador, whittling away at some 
splits to kindle the morning fire, when his 
father, who was smoking in silence, sud¬ 
denly said: 

“The old place is good enough for me, lad. 
It has given three generations of us a good liv¬ 
ing, but if you aren’t satisfied to stay home, 
what do you say to going away?” 

“Going away? Going away where? You 
know once the bay catches over there’s no 
going away anywhere from, here,” petulantly 
replied the younger man. 

“I’m not meaning to them high-falutin’ 
places the Doctor carried you off to get learn¬ 
ing. I’m meaning away into the new country 
above the big falls — away beyond the height 
of land where only t’ Indians have ever been.” 

211 


Northern Neighbors 

The eyes of the younger man opened wide, 
and any one watching him closely would have 
seen that it was an entirely new thought to 
him. But with the secretiveness of a good 
trapper he hid every trace of surprise, and 
shot a glance at his father to see if he could 
discover any occult reason for the unusual sug¬ 
gestion. Uncle Johnnie Montague, however, 
though he had “no learning,” was a trapper 
too, and of many years’ experience, and the 
schooling of the classroom which Donald had 
been enjoying in the States was just superficial 
enough to make him undervalue the wisdom 
of the woods. 

He had not even looked up from the rifle 
which he was cleaning, and the remark seemed 
so casual that Donald at once thought it 
was he himself who had really suggested it. 
Which was exactly what the old man knew to 
be necessary. 

“The country beyond the ranges,” he re¬ 
peated. “That’s the very thing I’ve always 
wanted to do. Say, you don’t mean you’d 
come too, do you?” 


212 



THE GRAND FALLS IN WINTER 





Above the Big Falls 

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t, Donald, lad; 
but there’s things to be settled first. It’s 
been in the minds of Pete White and Mal¬ 
colm McCook and Charlie Elworth, and we’ve 
talked it over once or twice last winter. The 
fur is getting caught out down below. I’m 
reckoning Malcolm and Charlie will be up at 
the Post with salmon Saturday, and you might 
go down yourself and fetch Pete up for over 
Sunday.” 

“Sure thing,” broke in Donald, surprised 
out of his Scotch caution by his combined 
enthusiasm and American associations. “ ’Tis 
a good time, and I’ll make a start right away.” 
A few minutes later the old man smiled grimly 
as he heard the boy whistling a ragtime melody 
as he started down stream in his birch bark 
canoe. 

“’Tis the way of youth,” he remarked that 
evening to his wife. “We’re all more or less 
like it, and there’s no way to check it. Even 
the good Lord can’t do that, and maybe ’tis 
as wise a way as ours.” 

“But Jock, dear, you won’t go yourself be- 

213 


Northern Neighbors 

yond the mountains, will you? You always 
got all we needs near home.” 

Instead of replying, John rose and stretched 
himself, kicked his legs, and pinched the 
muscles of his arm. 

“The reason many folks gets old so soon, 
Jean,” he answered, “is just because they 
thinks they is. Once you crawls on t’ shelf, 
there you’se likely to bide always. I’m not 
saying I doesn’t like my own fireside come 
nightfall, but I’m not pretending if I does go, 
it’s for any one else’s sake but my own. Here’s 
Donald with his learning thinks us old fogies 
— and maybe we is; but the lad has a heap 
to learn yet, in more ways than one, as you 
knows. Maybe it will do him a lot o’ good if 
an old fellow like me can still show him things. 
That’s not all the reason, though. Fact is, 
the call of that new country still gets me 
much the same as it gets Donald, and I 
reckon if I goes, it will be because I shall 
enjoy it.” 

“I’m no fearing for you, Jock. It was my 
own fun home I was thinking about. But you 

214 


Above the Big Falls 

go if you likes it, and if you can’t make it 
worth while, I knows no one who can.” 

“So be it, then, Jean, lass, if the others feels 
like it, and thank God old Uncle Jimmie’s 
song is true this winter, 

“‘There’s pork in the cubby galore! 

What is there that one can want more? 

So let’s off for old Huntingdon Shore once more; 

We’ll off for old Huntingdon Shore!*” 

Donald, however, didn’t make quite as 
straight for Pete’s salmon post as he might 
have. On the contrary, as he passed the en¬ 
trance of Eagle Brook he ran his canoe ashore, 
and slowly walked up the bank till a long low 
log house came into view on a clearing above 
a large pool. Something was wrong with him. 
He didn’t quite know what. Lack of apprecia¬ 
tion of his American learning somewhat galled 
his pride. His felt hat, his carefully brushed- 
back hair, and even his jacket and collared 
sweater failed to impress his imperturbable 
friends. The real cause of Donald’s restless¬ 
ness, however, lay in the log house above 
Traverspin Pool. Women at least, he had 

215 


Northern Neighbors 

thought, would succumb to style and modern¬ 
ism. But here too he was doomed to disap¬ 
pointment. Mark Stewart’s girl, the black- 
eyed beauty of the Bay, seemed entirely 
blind to his superiority, and was about to 
throw herself away on a fellow who could not 
even read and write, and who, though he did 
moderately well with fur and seals, had never 
shown originality or leadership among the 
other lads. 

The new possibility of glory to be won had 
unconsciously forced Donald to condescend 
once more to visit the girl, whom he thought 
he had persuaded himself was not worth 
worrying over. She was only a girl after all 
and he had thought he would soon forget her 
in the world outside, when as he hoped he 
would return and find permanent peace in the 
real civilization of Boston city. Now he found 
himself halted in the spruce woods, a gunshot 
from this “’way-back” old homestead, with 
his heart pit-pattering, sophisticated as he had 
imagined himself, and not daring to go either 
forward or back. The matter, however, was 

216 


Above the Big Falls 

settled for him. He suddenly found himself 
taken in the rear. 

“Is it peace or not?” a laughing voice 
exclaimed, and almost before he could turn 
around, a light hand pinched him on the arm. 
“Are you ambushing the Stewarts, or why 
treat old friends like an Indian scalp-hunter?” 

Another fall for school pride. Caught nap¬ 
ping by a girl! Yet as he turned and looked into 
her beautiful eyes he was still trapper enough to 
know that he deserved it, and was surprised 
into his old simplicity at once. 

“Come to surrender, Nora. The bait’s too 
attractive. I’ve been a fool. Will you forgive 
me?” He tried to catch her as he spoke. As 
well try for a weasel in a thorn bush, or an eel 
in a grass pool. The Stewart door closed with 
a snap, and a subdued Donald found himself 
humbly knocking outside, begging admission. 

It was late before his canoe touched the 
beach that night opposite Peter White’s tilt. 
Nor was it a very companionable Donald who 
thrust his head in at the door just as Peter’s 
evening pipe was cooling down. The pow- 

217 


Northern Neighbors 

wow, however, actually took place around 
Uncle John’s stove that fateful Saturday, and 
the five men all registered their promise to 
meet again “come September first” and leave 
together as soon as possible thereafter for the 
Promised Land “beyond the ranges.” 

It had become a never-ceasing topic of con¬ 
versation among the trappers of the Big River 
ever since they first heard of the new venture, 
and there were some who anticipated a great 
hunt, and others who pooh-poohed the idea 
of much fur on the barrens, which they 
thought the high table-land consisted of. Every 
one realized it was a try-your-luck venture; 
and the farewell was an occasion for a convivial 
meeting and much good comradeship. For 
they all worship a sporting spirit. 

It was decided that two of the party should 
take in a canoe, with reserve supplies, to the 
upper end of Lake Wininikapau, a hundred 
and fifty miles on their way, and return by 
September 1st, after which the whole party 
should start in as soon as possible. In his rest¬ 
less state of mind that was exactly what 

218 


Above the Big Falls 

Donald needed. For the physical exercise of 
hauling up a large canoe, laden with every¬ 
thing from bags of flour to iron traps, along 
a turbulent river successfully prevented him 
and his chum Charlie, who accompanied him, 
from worrying about much else. 

Somehow in the long lonely hours of the jour¬ 
ney Donald had at first unwillingly, and later 
less reluctantly, allowed his thoughts to carry 
him back to Traverspin River, and to the day 
on which the “chit of a girl” had stung his 
pride so deeply that he had never really been 
able to forget it. Lately, however, the one 
thought that had dominated his mind as he 
threw himself down at night to sleep under 
the trees had been how he would win out in 
that greatest of life’s ventures, rather than in 
the one piore immediately at hand. Deter¬ 
mined as he had been to forget all about her 
when he left for the Divide, he was now ten 
times as determined not to leave again for a 
long spell of months with the running all in the 
hands of rivals whom he despised. 

It was September 10 th before once more 

219 


Northern Neighbors 

the lads pulled their canoe up on the strand 
opposite John Montague’s home, and already 
the rest of the party had been snapping their 
fingers a whole week at the trysting place. 
So naturally none but his father understood 
why a young trapper like Donald objected so 
strenuously to starting right off again at once. 
They had everything ready for all hands, and 
already the girls were teasing the younger men 
about being shy of setting out oil so spooky an 
enterprise. Two days’ delay was the utmost to 
which they would agree, argue as he might. At 
length it came to a showdown, and old John 
made his only contribution to the argument 
in the style of his Scotch forebears. “Ye’ll 
start come daybreak Monday, Donald, and 
mind ’tis Saturday now, or Johnny Wolfrey’ll 
be the man that’ll tak’ yir place. If us hadn’t 
heard ye was as far out as Goose Bay, us would 
ha’ saved ye the trouble of coming out at all.” 
Donald knew his father well enough to waste 
no time in argument. He just got up and 
flung himself out of the house. 

Nothing but sheer necessity could ever 

220 


Above the Big Falls 

have held Donald even for the remainder of 
that Saturday from Eagle Brook. But as he 
must start Monday at daybreak or lose his win¬ 
ter, indispensable rearrangements and pack¬ 
ing made it late before he could possibly 
start out, and sheer weariness of flesh did the 
rest. It was Sunday and his last day at home 
before Donald found himself once more peer¬ 
ing out from underneath the same old spruce 
tree at Mark Stewart’s log cabin, though the 
sun had not been early enough to see him as 
he swung off down the river in his canoe. His 
long and successful journey upstream against 
rushing rapids and around roaring falls, with 
his precious freight in a frail birch-bark canoe, 
made almost in record time, had tended once 
more to lead him to put a higher estimate upon 
his own personal value than this ex-IIighland 
community of Scotchmen permitted. Yet like 
a “noggin” of spirits this lent a temporary 
stimulus to his courage. Alas, a suspicion of 
that same domineering air, which had so hand¬ 
icapped his chances before, was still suffi¬ 
ciently evident to make his reception by the 

m 


Northern Neighbors 

girl far from what he had hoped and even 
expected. 

“Nora,” he said, when after a long expen¬ 
diture of precious hours he realized he was no 
further on his quest than when he started, 
“Nora, what’s wrong wi’ ye? You knows 
all I wants to tell ye, and ye won’t let 
me say it.” 

“And who are you, Donald Montague, to 
be standing there telling me I’m wrong at all? 
Is it too big for our world you are, or what’s 
wrong with yourself, I’m wondering?” 

“It’s off for some months I am into the 
country, and I just wanted to tell you some¬ 
thing before I go.” 

“Then keep it to yourself till you come 
back, Mr. Montague — and good luck to you 
while you’re in this country for some months,” 
and once more the girl who had been standing 
on the threshold stepped inside and closed the 
door, and all he heard was her footsteps as she 
walked back into the house. 

Roughly they estimated that they had 
three hundred miles to get to the westward, 

222 


Above the Big Falls 

two hundred to be traveled by land, and about 
one hundred by water. The land gradually 
rises to two thousand feet or more. The Grand 
River, and the lakes on the high table-land, 
afforded most of the water transportation. 

It was a splendid morning which greeted 
the little party as they lined up for their 
start, but what was even more inspiriting was 
the fact that quite a number of friends had 
gathered at that early hour to bid them good¬ 
bye. The canoes were loaded to the brim, so 
much so that it seemed questionable whether 
the five men could ever squeeze into them, for 
not only had the freight to be stowed, but also 
the sledges which each man must have to haul 
his pack when enough snow fell. The snow- 
shoes, rifles, and other essential paraphernalia 
of the hunt — everything was ready at last. 

“ Good-bye, Jean,” said a very light-hearted 
John as he kissed his wife. 

“Good-bye and good-bye” was hurled to 
and fro by a score of friends. But Donald was 
not yet out to share in the general leave- 
taking. 


223 


Northern Neighbors 

“Tell Donald to hurry along, Jean, or he’ll 
be left yet,” shouted his father. 

The last small parcel had been tucked into 
the canoe; the last kisses bestowed, and even 
a handful of rice had been thrown, as if it were 
a merry marriage venture, when Donald at 
last came hurrying down to his canoe, which he 
had finished stowing before the others began, 
hoping thereby to avoid the crowd. So far 
away were his thoughts that not till he had 
actually stooped over to lay his beloved rifle 
beneath the sledge for better protection, did 
he notice an addition which had been made to 
it since he placed it there — a tiny piece of 
Stewart tartan ribbon was fluttering from one 
horn. It did not need a trapper to interpret 
the phenomenon, and when looking quickly up 
towards the little group of friends he saw in 
the middle of them, peeping over the shoulders 
of the staid old Scotchman from Traverspin, 
a pair of laughing, lustrous black eyes and the 
jet tresses of the girl whom now he knew he 
cared so much about, it was only knowledge 
which he had learned not in the haunts of the 


224 


Above the Big Falls 

mighty in the States, but in the school of the 
woods, that alone saved him from making one 
of those impulsive mistakes which is so often 
irredeemable. The blood leaped to his head 
at this utterly unexpected generosity from 
the girl whom he had not yet had one spark 
of reason to think cared an iota for his feelings. 
In the days which followed it stood him in 
good stead to remember that he had not em¬ 
barrassed the girl by making a fool of himself. 
Only he looked right into her beautiful eyes as 
he included her in the general good-bye which 
he now shouted as vigorously as the rest, be¬ 
fore he pushed his canoe out into the river. 

Traveling with sleighs through woods and 
forests, through dales and valleys, and over 
mountains and barrens is apt to be much the 
same everywhere. Hauling two canvas boats, 
they were able to make use of not a few still 
unfrozen “steadies” in the big river along 
whose banks they often kept for miles at a 
time, and up some of which they could still 
tow their packs in the boats, although the 
ponds, as our folks still call lakes, were frozen 

225 


Northern Neighbors 

hard. The long portage round the big falls, 
whose spray can be seen twenty miles off, and 
the yawning canyon our Indians call the home 
of the Manitou, alone took two days, and al¬ 
together twenty-six days had come and gone 
before the party found themselves on the 
shores of the big lake of which the Indians had 
often spoken to them, and which they called 
“ Mismickamuk. ,, 

It was a great day. Below and behind them 
lay vast stretches of spruce forest, which 
ranged far beyond the reach of the eye, with 
every here and there the silver streak of a river 
or the gray glint of a moss-covered barren. 
From a small elevation, which they climbed, 
they could, like Moses from Mount Pisgah, 
rest their eyes on the land of hope, if not yet of 
promise. The great, gray, rocky table-land of 
the interior of Labrador has been seen by very 
few white men, and as one looks at it from an 
elevation it is certainly terror rather than any 
other emotion which strikes a Southerner’s 
heart. It looks appallingly forbidding. Such 
trees and vegetation as there are are hidden 

226 


Above the Big Falls 

away under the shelter of mountain sides. 
The green which lines the rivers and the shores 
of the lakes makes little showing among the 
vast and apparently endless miles of barren 
rocks and naked mountain tops. Every mem¬ 
ber of the party, however, realized that it was 
a worth-while challenge to real men, and felt 
like shouting with excitement as it broke upon 
their view. 

They camped that night way down on the 
edge of the big lake among the generous 
spruces with the deep springy growth of black¬ 
berry and cranberry bushes furnishing beds 
fit for kings. They sat like primitive Indians 
late around the glowing embers and planned 
out the next move in their campaign. The 
first thing to do was to build a rough log tilt 
for the general rendezvous, which was to be in 
December just before New Year. It was agreed 
that Peter should remain and trap the east 
bank and along the ridge. Malcolm and John 
should take the south side, and Charlie and 
Donald the north side. There really was no 
choice, and anyhow no selfishness was shown 

227 


Northern Neighbors 

as when Lot and Abraham selected their 
parts of Canaan. 

Fortune is said to favor the brave, and at 
the parting of the roads perfect weather made 
the second farewell on the beach of the lake 
just another inspiration and encouragement. 
Whatever the rest offered, the north shore 
soon showed sure signs. It was no trouble to 
Charlie and Donald to read the marks that 
were abundant on the snow; and there proved 
also to be many more trees and sheltering un¬ 
dergrowth than they had anticipated. At the 
mouth of the first river Donald made up his 
mind to follow the valley, while Charlie was to 
go on farther to the westward. At this last 
divide a second camp was built, and the trees 
around blazed — and it was agreed that on 
every seventh day they should meet there to 
see that all was well. 

Both men were on time the following week. 
Caution, almost amounting to fear in an unin¬ 
habited wilderness in the depth of our winter, 
makes even seven days without hearing a 
human voice or seeing a human face, a long 

228 


Above the Big Falls 

while. But there were other reasons that kept 
them to the tryst. Both were excited with the 
good fortune the new country was bringing 
them, and over the embers as they smoked 
their pipes they had many tales to swap, even 
of one week’s adventures. Donald had three 
sables, a dozen mink, and several ermines to his 
tally. Charlie had besides two good foxes, a 
fine bear, whose hole he had chanced to dis¬ 
cover. At last they had surely found virgin 
ground, and after resting up Sunday they 
parted again in hilarious spirits, this time 
making it a ten-day period. Fortune still 
favored them. Again they had each added 
something to their “hunt,” and it was two 
good bags of fur that swung from the topmost 
rafter of the tilt, where it would be safe from 
any marauding animal that would be likely to 
come along. 

The boys’ dreams were of their triumphant 
homecoming, and of all the good things their 
catch would bring to those they loved from 
the Hudson’s Bay Company Post. But Don¬ 
ald traveled farther than that, and he kept 

229 


Northern Neighbors 

seeing himself carrying gifts to the log house 
at Traverspin for the girl that had tied the 
token to the horn of his sledge, utterly uncon¬ 
scious that it was his very assumption of 
superiority that had been the cause of his 
rebuff when he had been playing for higher 
game than the pelts of these fourfooted den¬ 
izens of the woods. 

The third rendezvous brought them to 
December, and should have been the last be¬ 
fore the general “rendezing” at New Year. 
But two new things had happened that made 
it essential to alter their plans. First of all, 
their food supply was already very short. It 
would soon need replenishing if the trapping 
proved as good as it had begun, for they would 
want to stay just as long as the season lasted. 
At Hopedale, a station on the northeast coast 
of the Moravian Missions, was a good store — 
one hundred and forty miles north of Eskimo 
Bay. It should be by compass about one 
hundred and fifty miles from the end of their 
present trail, for both boys had been working 
into the northeast. To go there would prevent 

230 


Above the Big Falls 

their attending the New Year pow-wow at the 
lake head, with their other partners. 

“ Don’t think we ought to go back on them,” 
argued Charlie, whose ambition was easily 
satisfied and who was for letting to-morrow 
take care of itself. 

But visions of Traverspin had entirely 
changed Donald’s viewpoint. Already they 
had over two thousand dollars’ worth of fur. 
As they lay gazing at the embers once more, 
Donald now saw himself carrying such gifts 
that no girl in her senses could resist — such 
as the log cottage had never even dreamed of. 
Victory in his eyes was always to be purchased 
by material means — the commonest mistake 
of humanity. 

“Me for Hopedale,” he argued, relapsing 
into one of his American blunt phrases. 

“That means you will go without me, eh?” 

“Not at all. I’ll go down to the big camp 
and flag the others. I reckon they’ll have a 
merry enough Christmas without me. That 
is ’lowing them half as good luck as ours.” 

“Us don’t know t’ way to Hopedale and I 

231 


Northern Neighbors 

don’t allow no white man does neither,” was 
the reply. 

“ So much the more fun for us,” said Donald, 
who, to tell the truth, was at that moment 
more anxious for yet another such feather for 
his cap than for even the extra month it might 
mean on their new path. 

“Fun?” Charlie’s wits were busy for an 
answer. 

“Why, you know they always has a big 
time at Christmas at the station. Them 
Northern fellows ’lows to go there every year 
if it takes them a month to do it. None out of 
our bay ever went there. Let’s go now, and 
we’ll have a big time Christmas.” And Donald 
leapt up in his new excitement and took down 
his rifle and commenced cleaning it all over 
again with meticulous care, as if he would start 
at once. His infectious enthusiasm and the 
novelty of the plan soon persuaded the easy¬ 
going Charlie. 

“So be it, Donald boy,” he said, and with¬ 
out being conscious of his own volte-face , he 
reached for his snowshoes and commenced 

232 


Above the Big Falls 

carefully overhauling the baggage, as he would 
before a long journey. 

Donald had gone already when Charlie 
awoke next morning. And though it was Sun¬ 
day, he made such good speed that by mid¬ 
night he once again was back at the tilt. 

“You never made the tilt and back, Don — 
’Tis a good day’s trip to get one way.” 

As his answer Donald held up a snow knife 
they had left at the rendezvous, as not being 
necessary on the hunting-grounds, but might 
well be on their journey to the coast, to make 
a snow house if there were no better shelter 
obtainable. 

“No one there. But I pegged a big notice 
on the table, saying, ‘Gone to Hopedale for 
the Christmas feasts.’ Won’t they be mad? 
I didn’t say ne’er a word about t’ fur.” 

Meanwhile as time is time to all Northern¬ 
ers, Charlie had not been idle, and had made 
every possible preparation for the big journey 
ahead. Both lads were in the pink of condition, 
and with good luck they hoped to make as 
much as forty miles a day, traveling light, and 

233 


Northern Neighbors 

sleeping in snow houses if necessary, which 
they could run up in half an hour. They could 
then work east till they struck a fjord, which 
they would follow to the sea, or until they 
struck one of the trails of the northern trappers. 
As for food they relied on the partridge and 
rabbits they could shoot as they went. The 
second day out, however, they crossed the 
fresh trail of a band of Indians, evidently mov¬ 
ing to the south and west, and thinking 
they might get some information, sidetracked, 
and overtook them. For our Indians move 
very slowly, hunting and furring as they go, 
and living off the land meanwhile, carrying far 
more gunpowder and tobacco than they do 
flour each time they leave the fur-trading 
posts, being Montagnais, or Mountaineers, 
a wandering remnant of the old Cree nation. 
They had been out at Ukasiksalik, a northern 
station of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to bar¬ 
ter pelts for ammunition, and were wandering 
slowly back to their annual religious gathering 
at Easter at St. Augustine on the Gulf of 
the St. Lawrence, where priests from Quebec 

234 



ROASTING A PORCUPINE 








Above the Big Falls 

confessed and shrived them for the following 
year. 

The information the Indians gave was val¬ 
uable, and on the fourth day the boys came 
out at the hospitable and well-off homes of the 
Metcalfs, trappers at the head of Pantalak 
Bay, a perfectly magnificent fjord leading out 
about forty miles to Hopedale itself. The fact, 
however, that this band would certainly cross 
their fur path before they returned, left their 
minds very uneasy. For bands of Indians have 
literally died of starvation during recent years, 
and their friends, not without reason, have at¬ 
tributed most of their troubles to the white 
man poaching on their grounds. So they have, 
on more than one occasion, expressed their 
resentment by burning as well as robbing the 
tilts of the white hunters, wdien they found 
them on what they considered their reserves. 

The big Huskie dogs of the Metcalfs had 
at first made it a little difficult for the strangers 
to approach the house, but when Archie and 
Ernie Metcalf with true Labrador hospitality 
harnessed their teams up next day and ran the 

235 


Northern Neighbors 

visitors to their journey’s end in five hours, 
they were very readily forgiven. The boys re¬ 
ceived the traditional Northern welcome from 
the crowd gathered for the Christmas festivi¬ 
ties, and the games, music, and dancing would 
have induced the easy-going Charlie to stay 
over New Year. But Donald was miserable, 
crazy to get back on to the height of land with 
his beloved traps. It was the nearest occasion 
that they ever came to a quarrel. 

“It’s leaving I am in the morning with 
Archie at daylight anyhow,” he said. “I’ll 
be there overnight getting the slide packed, 
and shall start again if the weather’s good at 
daylight for the country.” 

Charlie said nothing. He didn’t know his 
chum’s secret. But, truth to say, unconsciously 
he was himself freshly wounded in that same 
vital organ, with the dart that actually drew 
him the following winter to settle his fate at 
this far-off spot where certainly he had least 
expected it. So wayward is the fickle goddess 
of our loves! 

Donald had packed the slide which they 

236 


Above the Big Falls 

had decided to haul in turns, and was already 
bidding good-bye to his hosts when the second 
Metcalf team loomed in sight. It was Charlie, 
though a trifle grumpy Charlie, that jumped 
off, swallowed a hasty meal, and insisted on 
going on with his friend without waiting for 
any of the sleep due him. It seemed churlish 
to let him go that way, but losing one night’s 
sleep is a frequent occurrence in the next-to- 
nature life. The question was settled by the 
good nature of Archie, who quietly harnessed 
up his trusty team and hauled the whole lot 
far as the first tilt, on his own path. 

There is no knowing how far the new friend¬ 
ship might have carried them, but he couldn’t 
afford to disturb his fur trail with a great howl¬ 
ing pack of Huskies. So they parted the next 
morning with promises to repeat the visit if 
ever it were practical. 

A good deal of snow fell during the last part 
of their return trip, and only their instinctive 
woodcraft and wonderful fitness enabled them 
to haul safely so far, and so surely, the heavy 
weight of supplies they had purchased with a 

237 


Northern Neighbors 

few of their pelts. It was a great relief to find 
that their tilt was untouched. Their collec¬ 
tion of furs still hung from the roof. Their few 
things were exactly as they had left them. 
With renewed vigor for the next six weeks the 
trapping went on as merrily as a song. But the 
end of February, the time for returning, was 
drawing near and again provisions were run¬ 
ning out. 

Charlie was all for starting soon while the 
going was good. 

“There’s plenty of grub at the head of 
Lake Wininikapau, where us left the canoes,” 
he volunteered, “and no one has hunted that 
ground t’ winter. Us can go and trap round 
there till the river opens. Sure we’ve got fur 
enough to last till next year, anyhow.” 

Donald was, however, for making a bumper 
winter into a record one. His whole mind was 
set upon overwhelming the girl he sought to 
win with the proofs of his prowess. Ever since 
his sojourn in the States he had lost the ap¬ 
preciation for simplicity, humility, and gentle¬ 
ness that is the priceless possession of the is- 

238 


Above the Big Falls 

dated fishermen and trappers of the North¬ 
land. To his warped mind “things” were the 
winning card now to every rational mind, and 
the idea that love and happiness can best be 
gained by material things, the fallacy with 
which the Devil still misleads the ages of so- 
called civilization, left him almost as blind to 
real truth as the ordinary selfish human being 
whose guiding star is “ me first.” The accept¬ 
ance that loving yourself last is honestly a 
man’s best personal asset is also still practi¬ 
cally as rare as it was in Galilee. 

So Donald was for staying yet another fort¬ 
night on the height of land. 

“There’s still a good sign of foxes,” he 
argued, “and they won’t be tracing for a long 
while yet up here” (meaning that when they 
lay down, their beautiful long King hair would 
not yet be melted into and be frozen into 
the surface of the ice), “and white foxes are 
just coming along too and they’re worth catch¬ 
ing these days.” 

“Malcolm and the old man are out by now, 
I’m reckoning. There’s only Pete left in, and 

239 


Northern Neighbors 

you knows he won’t leave till us do, though 
he’s due back long ago, and it’s a shame to 
keep him,” Charlie ventured. 

“Waiting for me, I suppose? Thinks I want 
a nurse and pram since I went to the States, 
eh? Well, I’m not going to budge till St. 
Patrick’s Day, and that’s two weeks from next 
Wednesday. He can go home any time he 
likes. Guess I can take care of myself.” 

“It isn’t much account to me what you’se 
does, Donald. But you certainly do act con¬ 
trary these days. Though I do say it, you ain’t 
the same reasonable fellow you was before you 
got civilization —” 

“Cheer up, Charlie — maybe it’s my last 
time, and I want to make the most of it. I 
know you’ll stand by as you always have 
done,” he replied, realizing that there are 
sometimes at least when emotions are more 
potent than “things.” Even this trifling con¬ 
cession to gentleness had its immediate result. 

“If that’s how you look on it, old man, you 
can count on me. I don’t suppose it will make 
much difference fifty years hence.” 

240 


Above the Big Falls 

“St. Patrick’s Day then, March 17th. We’ll 
meet at the big lake camp.” 

“Right you are! Be on time!” 

“Sure I will. Good-bye and good luck.” 

And for the last time the two lads parted for 
a final round-up of all their traps. 

Donald had poor luck that round. The fur 
seemed to have moved, and so very few signs 
were discernible that he thought at last, as he 
had many traps to haul and a good deal of fur to 
move, he might as well be early at the tilt and 
have a time resting around till Charlie came. 

March came in very blustering. The snow 
got deeper and deeper, even on the barrens, 
and it held so cold that it was like a bunch of 
feathers with no surface, and even on snow- 
shoes you sank down to your knees walking. 
With only twenty miles to go, Donald left for 
the rendezvous as usual at daylight, so as to 
take no chances of missing it by reaching the 
tilt in the dark. For there was no moon now 
and even the reflection from the snow wouldn’t 
help much through the trees after night, as 
there were no cut paths. 

241 


Northern Neighbors 

Suddenly about noon as he trudged along, 
the snow gave way under him — a large under¬ 
mined crust fell through, and Donald found 
himself struggling up to his waist in running 
water. The depth of young snow had con¬ 
cealed the fact that he was crossing a big blow 
hole. The edges kept giving way as he tried 
to climb out, so that he was wet to the skin 
up to his shoulders, before he once more 
hauled himself on to safety. 

Fortunately, the slide with his bag of fur 
was trailing so far behind as not to have got¬ 
ten wet. There was nothing for it now but to 
hurry as hard as he could, and make the tilt 
before he froze up. It was a man’s task, and 
not every one could have accomplished it, for 
the temperature was thirty below zero, and his 
clothing at once froze. Yet the powdery snow 
carried his weight worse than before, and as 
he toiled on and on, he had more than good 
reason to doubt even this ability to get in be¬ 
fore dark. His northern vitality, however, 
stood him in good stead, and as dark fell he 
made out the direction of the drogue of woods 

242 


Above the Big Falls 

in which the hut was sheltered, and at last 
utterly wearied and played out, he tumbled, 
rather than walked, through its friendly door. 
To get a fire going was the work of a few min¬ 
utes, and then to tear off the wet clothes, beat 
out the ice, hang them up, and crawl into his 
sleeping-bag on the floor. His outside things 
would be dry by morning in that close-heated 
atmosphere. lie would but slip on some loose 
skin moccasins and his dry underpants, just 
in case he might have to get out of the bag be¬ 
fore morning. He was too weary to eat and the 
heat, after the cold, made him deadly sleepy. 
Fortunately, the usual large pile of dry wood 
had been stored in the tilt — plenty to last 
till morning. He piled it up close to the stove 
so that he could reach out of the bag and heave 
in more fuel when necessary. 

In an hour or so he woke up feeling very 
chilly. The tilt was cold. The fire was nearly 
burnt out. Hurriedly he piled in wood — all 
the little stove would hold. It should last 
longer this time, he vowed. The last thing he 
remembered before he fell once more into the 


243 



Northern Neighbors 

deep sleep of utter exhaustion was heaping up 
the dry wood near the stove to be all ready 
when he should wake next time. 

Dreams troubled him. Something was 
wrong. He was down at Traverspin. Hot 
flashes were passing over him, as he got nearer 
the cottage that had scarcely been out of his 
mind an hour all these long weeks in the wilder¬ 
ness. 

But now he had so rich a gift to offer, he 
could calmly force his way into the house. 
But something wouldn’t let him. Something 
was wrong. He was burning with heat. He 
couldn’t go into the house like that. . . 

In his sleep he turned over, and a sharp pain 
made him wake with a start. Yes, he had burnt 
his finger, and a blaze of light was filling the 
tilt. My God! it was all on fire! The door 
was shut and the blaze mostly between him 
and it. Not a moment was to be lost. Bang!! 
Bang!! Bang!!! His magazine rifle was ex¬ 
ploding at his feet. Seizing a large log he 
hurled it at the door, jumped through the 
blaze, and fell sprawling on the snow outside. 

244 


Above the Big Falls 

It was a pitch-dark night — colder than 
ever. The opening of the tilt door had made a 
huge draft rush into it. The whole thing built 
of dry studding, with birch bark roofing, was 
one mass of flames. He could save nothing —• 
not even his stockings, trousers, coat, cap, 
mittens — nothing! 

What could he do? A few minutes where he 
was and he would certainly freeze to death. 
The next tilt was nine miles away. It was his 
only chance. Already he was beginning to 
freeze standing there. Without a moment’s 
further hesitation he dashed off through the 
woods. Luckily there was less soft snow among 
the trees. He could move fairly quickly. But 
without question the fact that his snowshoes 
were as usual hung up outside on the “mark” 
tree, gave him his one chance for life. Through 
the thin doeskin slippers with no socks or 
vamps, the thongs galled his feet horribly. 
But there was no time to think of details. Run 
— Run — Run — Run! Not a second to stop 
for either breath or rest. 

Fortunately, the woods kept the wind off 

245 



Northern Neighbors 

him somewhat. He was getting warmer with 
the exertion as he crashed through the woods 
like a frightened bull moose. He had covered 
over four miles. He was going right, for he re¬ 
membered the way well. But he just had to 
slow down to get breath. The woods he knew 
came abruptly to an end a little after half way, 
and there was a full two miles of absolute 
barrens to cross. The wind cut him like a knife 
as he broke out from the shelter, and while he 
literally fought his way up over that bitter 
hillside. 

He realized he was getting colder. Hurry 
as he would, beat himself as he would, the 
cold was relentlessly freezing his feet, and 
hands, and chest. On and on he struggled. 
His limbs were bruised and torn as he had 
charged into brambles and shrubs. The miles 
seemed endless, and he was getting terribly 
sleepy again. It was just as when he had felt 
the warmth of the tilt a few hours before. He 
could keep awake no longer. It was exactly as 
if he simply had to sleep without even stopping 
to have supper. Surely he might lie down just 

246 


Above the Big Falls 

for a minute — if only for a minute. How 
often just a few minutes of sleep had enabled 
him to take an extra four-hour watch at the 
wheel without winking! Surely if he lay down, 
just for one minute, it would be all right. The 
cold would wake him, and he would then be 
strong enough to struggle on to the end. He 
had made up his mind to it, when — what was 
that? Something pitch black ahead? or was 
he going blind, or to sleep as he ran? 

No, it was surely the edge of the last belt of 
woods. He must wait to sleep till he got their 
shelter from the wind. Then surely he would 
get strength to struggle on. The woods at 
last! What a wonderful thing! He felt better 
at once. This horrible wind no longer pierced 
through his skin. He was warm by contrast, 
and already he felt better. Of course he re¬ 
membered now if he had once slept out there 
he would never have wakened. Then his 
thoughts instantly carried him to Traverspin. 
He was making for the cottage. He had left 
his bag of fur with the canoe which he had 
hauled up again at the mouth of Eagle Brook. 

247 


Northern Neighbors 

Wouldn’t she be overjoyed? It was no dis¬ 
tance now to the cottage. On and on, he went, 
all the while, so he says, thinking the Stewart 
house was just ahead. 

Strange he had forgotten all about his weari¬ 
ness. All he was thinking about was Nora 
Stewart. She was close to him. She was surely 
calling him — nothing could keep him back. 
Somewhere he had realized that he could go 
right into the house this time. No need to dally 
about among the trees. Of course he was right 
after all. Goddess though she was, he always 
knew she could not turn him down with all 
those wonderful furs that he would lay at her 
feet. How beautiful the sheen on those sables 
was, and there was the silver fox stowed in a 
special pocket of his gunny sack. He hadn’t 
even told Charlie of that. Now he seemed to 
see them all laid out at Nora’s feet. 

The house at last! But the door was open. 
No one inside. There was no light either. He 
shouted, but no one answered. Only the sound 
of his own voice came back, and then suddenly 
once more he was back in the woods again. He 

248 


Above the Big Falls 

had reached the tilt. A fire, or he must die. 
Fortunately, day had dawned and he could see 
everything. His frozen fingers fumbled with 
the matches, always in the same place. But 
with a trapper’s skill he got a light. The tilt 
was empty! Through the open door snow had 
drifted in and covered the floor. Ugh! How 
repellent it looked! Some one had been there. 
They had cleaned out the firewood, and had 
left the door off. It couldn’t have been Mal¬ 
colm, or the old man. They never in their lives 
left a tilt without wood, or open to the w T eather. 
Peter and Charlie were still in the woods. 
Indians? Yes, the Indians. They had passed. 
He could now make out signs of them every¬ 
where. But they had spared the tilt, and yes, 
there in the rafters was the blanket sleeping- 
bag left for emergencies. They hadn’t robbed 
it. There was still a chance for life. The hat¬ 
chet hidden in the mark tree was there also — 
still in its place. He must get wood. He says 
now he forgets getting it. But he made a fire, 
and with supreme effort thawed out some snow 
in the tin kettle, and sat with his feet in the 

249 


Northern Neighbors 

cold water with snow in it, in a basin, rubbing 
and working them with his frozen hands till 
he could feel, as he kicked a piece of wood. 

He was all himself again now, except that 
he felt horribly sick, and his feet hurt terribly. 
However, he managed to swallow some hot 
tea with molasses. The sleep in the burning 
tilt had been all he needed for the while. For¬ 
tunately, he could keep awake. It was far too 
dangerous to go to sleep in the bag. He would 
wrap up in the blankets and rest sitting by the 
fire. 

His feet hurt him more and more, and he 
had to go outside and get wood before night. 
He crawled to his snowshoes and put them on. 
It was no use. Already his feet were all blis¬ 
tered up and terribly blue. There was no alter¬ 
native. He could no longer stand. So he must 
put the snowshoes on his hands and drag his 
legs wrapped up in blankets till he could get 
at a tree. 

By night he actually had a good deal of 
wood stacked. It was St. Patrick’s Day. 
Charlie should reach the other tilt that day. 

250 


I 


Above the Big Falls 

Would he come on? Between times of feed¬ 
ing the fire, crouched up on the floor, he 
got snatches of sleep. IIow interminable that 
night seemed! He had no way to measure 
time. But day came again at last, and still no 
sign of Charlie. More wood must be had. His 
stock was exhausted. Fortunately, no fresh 
snow had fallen, but he was so weak he didn’t 
expect to last the day out. Unable to cook, 
he couldn’t feed himself. But when he crawled 
out he actually tailed a slip for a rabbit, in the 
hope he might make some kind of a meal. His 
life depended on Charlie’s coming. But midday 
came and went and still no signs. As no one 
came along by nightfall he got a piece of old 
paper, and with the bullet of a cartridge he 
scrawled good-bye to Charlie, and a message 
to be given to the girl at Traverspin. It must 
have been past midnight. It was still as a 
grave outside and bitterly cold, when suddenly 
a sound like a breaking twig aroused him to 
keen attention. He could hear nothing. Then 
again another cracking twig. Some one or 
something was certainly moving around the 

251 


Northern Neighbors 

house in the tangle and darkness outside. 
There was an old .22 rifle in the tilt. Donald 
reached for it, opened the door and fired twice 
into the darkness. Almost instantly he heard 
footsteps approaching. Some one was really 
pushing through the undergrowth. A moment 
later, and the welcome features of Charlie be¬ 
came visible as he beat the long icicles from his 
mustache and muffler. 

“Donald boy, what has happened? I sure 
thought you were dead, and was just afraid to 
come into the tilt till you fired. The storm 
made me late getting to the lake head. It was 
after dark when I got there on St. Patrick’s 
Day, and I couldn’t find the tilt anywhere. I 
felt sure I was in the right drogue, but in the 
dark could see nothing, and I just had to 
wander around until daylight. The wind had 
drifted the snow everywhere, and not a trace 
could I find of the tilt, till at last I made out 
the mark tree and kept walking around for 
signs of the hut. Then I saw it had been burnt. 
But how? There wasn’t a thing left to tell the 
tale. Of course I thought it was ‘ Indians ’ and 

252 


Above the Big Falls 

went back to the lake to see if I could find any 
sign of you. Then I thought you might have 
gone on after dark, and that accounted for 
no blazes or marks to tell me what you’d 
done. So I followed on here. But what’s the 
matter with your feet? My sakes, what’s the 
matter with your feet? ” 

And then the good fellow sat down and 
heard the whole story, and, “Charlie,” Don¬ 
ald ended, “’t’s all gone. All your fur you 
left there, and all the work of the winter 
has gone up in smoke,” and as Donald real¬ 
ized for the first time what it all meant, he 
broke down and wept. For now that there 
was hope for life, his thoughts had suddenly 
jumped once more to the cottage at Traver- 
spin. Sick, crippled, penniless — nothing to 
offer. His pride vanished and his hands empty. 
Why hadn’t he gone to sleep on that open 
hillside? 

His foolish mind still thought that with the 
loss of “things” his chance of winning love 
and the worth-while things of earth were out 
of the question for him! 

253 


Northern Neighbors 

Charlie laughed. “Skins is it, Donald? 
Sure it’s laughing you ought to be, and thank¬ 
ing St. Patrick into the bargain Pm thinking, 
that you saved your own skin, or at least the 
part of it that you did save. These ears and 
cheeks look a little as if Jack Frost had been 
practising on you, like I hears that French¬ 
man does in the prize fights, and your nose 
will look as if you needed to mind the new 
prohibition rules a bit better, though they do 
say that St. Patrick’s folk count the mark of 
the bottle no disrespect to the memory of the 
saint. However, I’m talking when I should 
be doing,” and tired as he was himself, he at 
once set to work to get some food ready, so 
that he might add “doing” to the longest 
effort in “talking” he had ever been known 
to make. 

All that he could do he did that night, 
ministering as tenderly as a nurse could to the 
needs and troubles of his friend. He realized, 
however, the need for haste. They must try 
and get to skilled help just as soon as possible. 
So having left everything ready that he could, 

254 


Above the Big Falls 

without even lying down for a nap he started 
back up the lake to find Peter, and prepare for 
the big effort of hauling a sick man two hun¬ 
dred and fifty miles to the Hospital of the 
Mission at North West River, where Donald 
had met the Doctor who had helped him to 
the States. 

The laconic Peter, when he heard the news, 

> 

said but little. 

“All in the day’s work, Charlie. ’Tis no 
good crying over spilt milk. Perhaps ’tis a 
lesson worth the price. For I feared for Donald 
when I saw he was so changed by his visit 
away. A year or two and he’ll no remember 
the few pelts, and maybe he’ll have found 
there’s something bigger than just having 
things. For I’m fearing he’s forgotten it.” 

The big grasp of Peter’s hand did more for 
Donald than a cupboard full of medicine. 
The whole bay knew Peter. For no one could 
have better embodied those splendid character¬ 
istics which earned that name for his Galilean 
prototype. Donald was a child again in his 
hands, and that was exactly the mental at- 

255 


Northern Neighbors 

titude he needed, for the rest that also could 
save his life. 

That night he slept like a child, while the 
two men took watches in turn. For four days 
the scales seemed to hang in the balance. 
Sometimes Donald knew them. Sometimes 
he didn’t. He was horribly hot, and coughed 
a little. Then thanks to the North and a clean 
life, he got suddenly better. He knew them 
again and rested. He wasn’t so hot. But 
horribly weak. It wasn’t safe to start, but the 
shortness of food made it urgent they shouldn’t 
delay an hour longer than necessary. Out 
of deerskin and rabbit furs the men had made 
warm wraps for their charge, and the 9th being 
a good day they left for the long journey, 
hauling their chum on a big improvised sledge. 

For the first three or four days the path was 
level. If anything, really it was down grade 
and they made good headway, about fifteen 
miles on an average per day. But after that the 
trail crossed the rocky ridges between the 
height of land and the first big lake, and 
Charlie’s ability to haul began to peter out. 

256 


Above the Big Falls 

Two years before he had badly broken several 
ribs, and to that he attributed his failure. 
Really, however, he himself had suffered from 
the overwork and exposure, for by night 
and day he had never spared himself for a 
moment. 

As for Donald, the rough going and the en¬ 
forced effort to help all he could also set back 
the little he had gained during the four days’ 
careful nursing in the tilt, and he could eat but 
the tiniest bit of food and could not keep even 
that down long. 

At last they reached the bank of the large 
Pouilik Lake. With the shortness of food and 
all the hauling depending on Peter, the only 
chance was to send Charlie on alone, for he 
could walk much faster than they could haul 
the heavy sledge, sick as he was himself. 

Leaving them with four cups of flour, a little 
salt and some tea, but with nothing else, ex¬ 
cept about fifty cartridges for their .22 rifle, he 
left them one hundred and forty miles from the 
nearest house, with a temperature twenty be¬ 
low zero. They pushed on a little every day, 

257 


Northern Neighbors 

however, always putting out a few snares for 
rabbits where they camped, once getting some 
fine trout through a hole that Peter succeeded 
in making through several feet of ice, and with 
these, a few partridges he killed with the .22. 
Charlie fell in with some of the lumbermen on 
their wood paths on the seventh day, and, with 
the help of a couple of fine dog teams, on the 
tenth, he met Peter still cheerfully tramping 
along and hauling the sledge, as he certainly 
would have done till he dropped in his tracks, 
had help not arrived. Their food was gone and 
their ammunition spent before they heard the 
cries of the dogs and men, as they tore along 
over the snow on their rescue mission, and 
without aid they could never have reached 
home. 

The story of Donald’s misfortunes spread 
by grapevine telegraph all along the Coast. 
For a long while as he lay in the little hospital, 
it was an open question which way the turn of 
tide would go. For a bad relapse resulted from 
the exposure of the journey. But in his wan¬ 
derings his secret leaked out, and both nurse 

258 


Above the Big Falls 

and doctor at length agreed that there was 
one chance that would help more than any 
other, if only it could be obtained, and which 
the crisis demanded they should try to pro¬ 
cure for him. That which now Donald 
couldn’t ask for himself, they felt they might 
be forgiven for asking for him. 

That’s why a nurse visited the cottage on 
Eagle Brook late one morning. Would Nora 
leave to visit their patient? She alone could 
bring the one thing that is more strong than 
death itself to help them in what they still 
feared was going to be a losing fight. 

That is why one day the puzzled eyes 
of a man recovering from a long period of 
unconsciousness fell on a piece of Stewart 
tartan hanging from the post at the foot of 
his bed. 

To-day Donald shares with all our folk the 
simplest of faiths in the over-ruling by higher 
power of men’s affairs. 

He will tell you to-day, so far as he is con¬ 
cerned, it all happened just as he would have 
arranged it himself if he had only known 

259 


Northern Neighbors 

what he knows now. “For,” he says, “Nora 
Stewart is the kind that could only have been 
won by a man who knows what is better in life 
than mere ‘things.’” 


ST. ANTHONY’S FIRST CHRISTMAS 

A universal robe of white had long covered 
our countryside, hiding the last vestige of the 
rocky soil, and every trace of the great summer 
fishery. The mail steamer had paid its final 
visit for six months to come. The last link 
with civilization was broken. Even the loiter¬ 
ing sea ducks and lesser auks had left us. The 
iron grip of winter lay on sea and shore. 

At its best, the land here scarcely suggests 
the word “country” to a Southerner. The 
rock is everywhere close to the surface, and 
mosses and lichens are its chief coverings. The 
larger part of the country we call “barrens.” 

Few of the houses deserve even the name 
of cottages, for all are of light, rough wood. 
Most consist of only one story, and contain but 
two rooms. To the exacting taste of civiliza¬ 
tion, the word “huts” would convey a more 
accurate idea of these humble abodes. The 
settlements themselves are small and scat¬ 
tered and at this season of the year the empty, 

261 


Northern Neighbors 

tilts of the summer fishermen give a still more 
desolate aspect to these lonely habitations. 

Early in December we had been dumped 
from the little mail steamer on the ice of St. 
Anthony Harbor about half a mile from shore, 
and hauled “on dogs” to the little hospital, 
where we were to make our headquarters 
for the winter. Christmas was close upon 
us. Not unnaturally, our thoughts went over 
the sea to the family gathering at home, at 
which our places would be vacant. We should 
miss the holly and mistletoe, the roast beef 
and plum pudding, the inevitable crackers, 
and the giving and receiving of presents, which 
had always seemed essential to a full enjoy¬ 
ment of the Christmas season. 

Few of the children of our harbor had ever 
possessed a toy; there was scarcely a “little 
maid” who owned a doll. Now and again one 
would see, nailed high up on the wall, well out 
of reach of the children, a flimsy, cheaply 
painted doll; and the mother would explain 
that her “Pa got un from a trader, sir, for 
thirty cents. No, us don’t ’low Nellie to have 

262 



ACCOMMODATION FOR TOURISTS 





9 







St. Anthony’s First Christmas 

it, ’feared lest she might spoil un” — a fear 
I found to be only too well grounded when I 
came to examine its anatomy more closely. 

Christmas-trees in plenty grew near the 
hospital. “Father Christmas” could easily 
be persuaded to attend a “Tree.” The only 
question was whether our stock of toys would 
justify us in inviting so many children as would 
want to come. It is easy to satisfy children 
like these, however, and so we announced 
that we expected Santa Claus on a certain 
day. Forthwith, whispers reached us that 
Aunt Mary thought her Joe weren’t too big 
to come; sure, “he’d be only sixteen.” May 
White was “going eighteen,” but she would 
so love to come. Old Daddy Gilliam would 
like to sit in a corner. He’d never seen a 
Christmas-tree, and he was “nigh on eighty.” 
We were obliged to yield, and with guilty con¬ 
sciences consented to twice as many as the 
room would hold. All through the day before 
the event, the Sister was busy making buns; 
and it was even noised abroad that a barrel of 
apples had been carried over to the “Room.” 

263 


Northern Neighbors 

In the evening of the day previous, a sick- 
call carried me north to a tiny place on the 
Straits of Belle Isle, where a woman lay in 
great pain, and by all accounts dying. The 
dogs were in their best form and traveling 
was fair enough till we came to a huge arm of 
the sea, which lay right in our path and was 
only recently “caught over” with young ice. 
To reach the other shore we had to make a wide 
detour, bumping our way along the rough 
ballicaters of the old standing ice. Even here 
the salt water came up through the snow, and 
the dogs sank to their shoulders in a cold mush 
that turned each mile into half a dozen. We 
began to think that our chance of getting back 
in time on the morrow was small indeed. 

One thing went a long way toward reconcil¬ 
ing us to the disappointment. The case we had 
come to see proved to be one in which skilled 
help was of real service. So we were a contented 
company round the log fire in the little cottage, 
as we sat listening to stories from one and 
another of the neighbors, who, according to 
custom, had dropped in to see “ t’ Doctor.” 

2G4 


St. Anthony’s First Christmas 

Before long my sleeping-bag was loudly call¬ 
ing to me after the exercise of the day. “We 
must be off by dawn, Uncle Phil, for there’s 
no counting on these short days, and we have 
promised to see that Santa Claus is in time 
for the Christmas-tree to-morrow night at St. 
Anthony,” I told my driver. 

Only a few minutes seemed to have passed 
when, “’Twill be dawning shortly, Doctor,” 
the familiar tones of my driver’s voice came 
filtering into my sleeping-bag. “Right you 
are, Phil; put the kettle on and call the dogs; 
I will be ready in a couple of shakes.” 

Oh, what a glorious morning! An absolute 
stillness, and the air as sweet as sugar! Every¬ 
where there was a mantle of perfect white 
below, a fathomless depth of cloudless blue 
overhead — and the first radiances of the com¬ 
ing day blending one into the other with rich, 
transparent reds. We found it a hard job to 
tackle up the dogs, they were so mad to be off. 
As we topped the first hill and the great bay 
that had caused us so much trouble lay below 
us, my driver gave a joyous shout. “Hurrah, 

265 


Northern Neighbors 

Doctor! there’s a lead for us.” Far out on the 
ice he had spied a black speck moving toward 
the opposite shore. A komatik had ventured 
over the young ice, and to follow it would mean 
a saving of five miles to us. 

We made a good landing and scaled the op¬ 
posite hill, and were galloping over the high 
barrens, when the dogs began to give tongue, 
loudly announcing that a team was coming 
from the opposite direction. As we drew near 
a muffled figure jumped off, and, hauling his 
dogs to one side, shouted the customary 
“What cheer?” 

Then a surprised “The Doctor, as I live! 
Why, there’s komatiks gone all over the 
country after you. A lad has shot hisself 
down at St. Ronald’s, and he’s bleeding 
shocking.” 

“All right, Jake. The turn for the path is 
off the big pond, is it not?” 

“That’s it, Doctor, but I’m coming along 
anyhow, ’feared I might be wanted.” 

My little leader must have overheard this 
conversation, for she simply flew over the hills. 

266 


St. Anthony’s First Christmas 

Yet the early winter dusk was already falling 
when at length we shot down the semi-precipice 
on the side of which my patient’s house clung 
like a barnacle. The anxious crowd, gathered 
to await our arrival, disappeared like morning 
mist at sunrise. The tiny, naked room was 
already choked with well-meaning visitors, 
though they were able to do nothing but look 
on and defile what little air made its way in 
through the fixed windows. Fortunately, for 
want of putty, a little air leaked in around the 
panes. 

Stretched on the floor behind the stove lay 
a pale-faced boy of about ten years. His 
clothes had been taken off, and an old patch- 
work quilt covered his shivering body. His 
right thigh was bound with a heterogeneous 
mass of bloody rags. Sitting by him was his 
mother, her forehead resting on her clenched 
hands. She rose as I entered, and without 
waiting for questions, broke out: “Tis Clem, 
Doctor. He got Dick here to give him the gun 
to try and shoot a gull, and there were a high 
ballicater of ice in the way, and he were trying 

267 i 


Northern Neighbors 

to climb up over it, and he pushed the gun 
before him with the bar’l turned towards his- 
self, and she went off and shot him, and us 
doesn’t know what to do next — next, and —” 

While she ran on with her lament, I cleared 
the room of visitors, and kneeling down by the 
boy, removed the dirty mass of rags that had 
been used to staunch the blood. The charge 
had entered the thigh at close quarters above 
the knee, and passed downwards, blowing the 
kneecap to pieces. Most of it had passed out 
again. The loose fragments of bone still ad¬ 
hering to the ragged flesh, the bits of clothing 
blown into it, and the foul smell and discolora¬ 
tion added by the gunpowder made the out¬ 
look a very ugly one. Moreover, there rose 
to my mind the memory of a similar case in 
which we had come too late, as blood poison¬ 
ing had set in, and the child died after much 
suffering. 

The mother had by this time quieted down, 
and simply kept on repeating, “What shall us 
do?” 

“There’s only one thing to be done. We 

268 



St. Anthony’s First Christmas 

must pack Clem up and carry him to the hos¬ 
pital right away.” 

“Iss, Doctor. ’Tis the only way, I'm think¬ 
ing,” she replied. “An’ I suppose you’ll cut 
off his leg, and he’ll never walk no more, and 
oh, dear! what —” 

“Come, tear up this calico into strips and 
bring me some boiling water — mind, it must 
be well boiled; and get me that board over 
there — it will serve to make a splint; and then 
go and tell Dick to get the dogs ready at once; 
for we’ve a Christmas-tree at St. Anthony to¬ 
night, and I must be back at all costs.” 

In this way we kept her too busy to worry or 
hesitate about letting the child go; for we well 
knew it was his only chance, and as she had 
never seen a hospital, the idea of one was as 
terrifying as a morgue. 

“Home, home, home!” to the dogs — and 
once-, again our steel runners were humming 
over the crisp snow. Now in the darkness we 
were clinging to our hand-ropes as we shot 
over the hills. Soon the hospital lights were 
coming up, and then the lights in the windows 

269 


Northern Neighbors 

of the “Room.” As we drew near they looked 
so numerous and so cheerful that we could 
almost imagine we were approaching a town. 
Then we could hear the merry ring of the 
children’s voices, and make out a crowd of 
figures gathered around the half-open door¬ 
way. They were anxiously awaiting the tardy 
arrival of “Sandy Claws.” Of course, we were 
at once recognized, and there was a general 
hush of disappointment. They had thought 
that at last “Sandy” himself was come. 

“He is only a bit behind us,” we shouted. 
“He is coming like a whirlwind. Look out, 
everybody, when he gets here. Don’t get too 
dose to his dogs.” 

Only a little while later, and the barking of 
our team announced the approach of the other 
komatik. Some one was calling from the dark¬ 
ness, and a long sleigh with a double-banked 
team of dogs had drawn up opposite the door¬ 
way. Two fur-clad figures standing by it 
steadied a huge box which was lashed upon it. 
The light shining on the men revealed only 
sparkling eyes and large icicles hanging from 

270 


St. Anthony’s First Christmas 

their heavy mustaches and whiskers, over their 
mufflers, like the ivory tusks of some old bull 
walrus. Both men were panting with exertion, 
and blowing out great clouds of steam like gal¬ 
loping horses on a frosty morning. There could 
be no doubt about it this time. Here was the 
real “Sandy Claws ” at last, come mysteriously 
over the snows from the polar sea with his 
dogs and komatik and big box and all! 

The excitement of the crowd, already tense 
from anxiety over our own delay, now knew no 
bounds. Where had they come from? What 
could be in that huge box? How large it loomed 
in the darkness! Could it have really been 
dragged all the way from the North Pole? 
Luckily, no one had the courage left to go near 
enough to discover the truth. 

The hospital door was swung open, and 
a loud voice cried out: “Welcome, welcome, 
Sandy Claws! We’re all so glad you’ve come; 
we thought you’d forgotten us. Come right in. 
Oh, no! don’t think of undoing the box out¬ 
side; why, you’d freeze all those toys! Just 
unlash it and bring it right in as it is. There’s 

271 


Northern Neighbors 

a cup of tea waiting for you before you go 
over to start your tree.” 

There had been rumors all the week that 
“Sandy Claws” would bring his wife this year. 
So we could explain the second man; for the 
Eskimo men and women all dress alike in 
North Labrador, which would account for 
Mrs. Claws’ strange taste in clothes. A dis¬ 
creet silence was observed about her frozen 
whiskers. 

A few minutes later another large box was 
carried over to the “Room.” It was full of 
emptiness, for the toys were on the tree long 
before. However, two strange masked and 
bewigged figures stumbled over the snow 
with it, to carry out the little drama to its 
close. So complete was the faith in the un¬ 
earthly origin of these our guests, that when 
the curtain went up more than one voice was 
heard to be calling out fearfully for “Ma” and 
“Dad,” while a lad of several summers was 
found hidden under the seat, when it came his 
turn to go up and get his “prize.” 

Christmas has gone long ago. Already we 

272 


St. Anthony’s First Christmas 

have heard the ominous groaning of the heavy 
ice along the land-wash, warning us that the 
season of open water is getting nearer, and that 
soon our icy fetters will be broken. “Clem” 
has gone to his home again. He is able to run 
and walk like the merry lad he is, for not only 
his life, but his limb also, has been saved to 
him. Thus Santa Claus came to St. Anthony 
and brought a gift for us as well as presents for 
the children. Indeed, he kept the best for us, 
for our Christmas gift was the chance to save 
Clem’s life and we would not have exchanged 
it for any we had ever heard of. 


SOU’WEST BY WEST 

i 

The winter in Peacehaven had long since 
reached the turning. A week ago the sun had 
crossed the line, and the straggling rays of the 
late March sunshine at midday had moistened 
and weakened the snow surface, while the frost 
at evening welded it into one universal speed¬ 
way. 

Abel and Shem Lovejoy were racing, with 
their respective teams of dogs, after their sec¬ 
ond load of firewood for the day, along the 
wood path to Sleepy Hollow, where most of 
the Peacehaven men had been 4 ‘cutting” that 
particular winter. As they swung round a bend 
in the trail that brought them to the foot of 
the steep bluff of the Grebe’s Nest Hill known 
as the “Silver Falls” because it is really the 
bed of a waterfall in summer, a yell warned 
them, but alas, too late, that a loaded sledge 
was shooting down almost on to their heads. 

Another instant and the usual sylvan silence 

274 , 


Sou’west by West 

had given place to pandemonium. The two men, 
with the quick reaction bred of a life next to the 
hard things of nature, just saved themselves 
by diving head foremost into the woods at the 
sides of the path, before a komatik bearing 
two heavy logs dropped as if from the sky on 
to the very top of the sledge they had occupied 
a second before. Meanwhile a shower of dogs 
had come down like a magnified hailstorm 
right amidst their own two teams, and were 
already engaged with them in mortal combat. 
Their mode of arrival had broken through the 
ice crust and the various fighting units were 
rapidly disappearing in the deep snow be¬ 
neath, making it dangerous work for the lads 
to save their only method of traction from 
extinction. 

Characteristically they had wasted no time 
worrying over the cause of the catastrophe. 
Abe, who had got a hasty nip in the hand 
while saving his leader from the maw of two 
powerful dogs with wolfish hides that pre¬ 
vented their adversaries from getting any¬ 
thing but a mouthful of fur, was ruefully rub- 

275 


Northern Neighbors 

ing a handful of snow into the bleeding mem¬ 
ber, when his brother suggested there must 
have been some one responsible for the ava¬ 
lanche. A search revealed the body of a friend 
pinned down in the snow under one of the logs 
that had been flung from his sledge. 

“Ky Transome, by all the powers!” ex¬ 
claimed Shem, as he turned the limp body 
over. “Haven’t seen him the winter hardly. 
Looks sick though.” 

“There’s no fear o’ him,” chimed in Abe 
with a sigh of relief. “You can’t kill Ky with 
anything less than a sledge-hammer.” 

“This isn’t exactly an old man’s stunt,” 
added Shem with a grunt, as with one hand he 
rubbed snow over the face of the half-stunned 
man, and with the other gently shook him to 
and fro, as if to readjust some displaced parts 
inside him. For some unknown reason Ky 
responded to their efforts, and they soon had 
the satisfaction of seeing his eyes open, and a 
grin stealing over his face showed he recognized 
his self-appointed attendants. 

“Ease her up a bit, Shem, old boy,” he 

276 


Sou’west by West 

growled, “or you’ll start a plank somewhere. 
I’ll be all right in a few minutes.” 

Having found he could stand upright, they 
started to excavate and restow the logs on the 
heavily built “ catamaran ” which he was using. 
Ky, having repeated on his own initiative the 
shaking process that had seemed so effective in 
his friend’s hands, assured them he was once 
more “feeling fine.” So the brothers proceeded 
on their journey promising to pick him up on 
the way out “if anything gave out.” 

“He’s been away in the country cutting 
saw logs in the ‘tant’ (tall) woods, I reckon,” 
said Abel, as they proceeded to load up their 
own sledges with firewood; “must be going to 
take a schooner in tow.” 

“’Tis Donald Macleod’s girl, Nora, in Hin- 
chinbrook, I ’lows,” answered Abe, “Ky’s a 
high flyer and no one can deny it. But he’s 
mighty close about it.” 

“He’s afeared of her,” said Shem, “afeared 
of a bit of a girl. He knows us’d laugh at him, 
who never feared anything else on earth in his 
life.” 


277 


Northern Neighbors 

Ky was more shaken than he admitted and 
the Love joy boys were over to see him a few 
times in a neighborly way, before he was able 
i to do any such work as log hauling again. Yet 
they noticed he played the part of a frightened 
mouse, rather than that of the dare-devil of 
the harbor that he had always been. 

Never letting either of the brothers get a 
hint of what was passing through his mind, it 
was only when a week or two of time had been 
lost and there were signs that the hauling might 
shortly break up that he came round to their 
house one evening and asked if they would 
help him bring home the bunch of logs he had 
cut in the winter. 

The master motive showed itself all that 
summer in a new fact. Ky’s splendid energies 
were focused for the first time on “business” 
(getting ahead). The earliest fishermen to 
start for the “grounds” each day found Ky’s 
boat already gone from her collar; the last light 
in the stages at night, when any fish was “run¬ 
ning,” was always sure to be Hezekiah’s. His 
trader, as he made the rounds of his planters’ 

278 


Sou’west by West 

stages, marked with approving eye the bulk 
of Ky’s “water horse,” or wet salted codfish, 
mounting so much more rapidly than hereto¬ 
fore, and felt justified in advancing him a far 
more generous and effective outfit than he 
would otherwise have dreamt of. 

When fall came that year to Peacehaven, 
for the first time Hezekiah Transome boarded 
the trader’s vessel with the sensation of a 
capitalist. True, there were still a few things 
he needed for the job he had laid out for him¬ 
self, after he had “taken up” the value of 
all his fish notes. But Joseph Marshland, a 
really fine-hearted man, had marked Ky’s 
conversion, and as he often did under similar 
circumstances though with less prospect of see¬ 
ing his money back, supplied all he needed on w 
credit. 

Hinchinbrook was fifty miles “up the bay,’* 
near the entrance to which Peacehaven was 
situated. The Macleods were among the old 
settlers of the Coast, their grandfather having 
been one of the earliest coopers to come out 
from Scotland, in the service of the Hudson’s 


Northern Neighbors 

Bay Company, in their vessel, that visits Lab¬ 
rador every year to collect valuable furs taken 
by their trappers, and to bring supplies for the 
coming year. 

The Macleod fur-path was one of the long¬ 
est and most remunerative in the country, 
and with Scotch foresight each generation had 
nursed it carefully, safeguarding it from any 
exploitation or overtrapping. Indeed, though 
the family always insisted that it followed 
the river for three hundred miles, even the 
roving band of Nascopee Indians seldom in¬ 
terfered with it. For Sandy Macleod had 
served them well many times, but especially 
one winter when they had missed the caribou 
herd and were starving in their wigwams. He 
and his boys had hauled in their own food to 
the rescue, and the tradition had never been 
forgotten by the mountaineers. 

But beside their fur-path, the Macleods 
owned also the best salmon post in the bay, 
and in good years would collect as much as 
two hundred tierce of salmon. They were 
“solid folk” moreover, and somewhere in a 

280 


Sou’west by West 

stocking or box, there lay buried a good store 
of gold coins with the “galloping horse” on 
one side, that relieved them entirely of the 
anxiety for daily bread, which is the one real 
penalty of a life-occupation so full of chances 
as that of the fishermen’s and trappers’. The 
general run of the Coast people never know 
the meaning of what it is “to be safe for the 
winter” before the traders have settled with 
them for the “summer’s voyage.” 

There are practically no social distinctions 
in the country, but the very gambling nature 
of the calling makes the thoughtful and more 
“ solid” folk shy of entrusting their girl to the 
care of any man whose reputation is rather 
for “wild oats” than thrifty virtues. Ky had 
just discovered this and was determined to 
acquire a reputation that would secure him 
from rebuff, when he dared to ask Uncle Sandy 
for the hand of his only daughter, Nora. 

With a dog team like Ky’s, fifty miles was 
only a morning’s jaunt, when the “going” was 
good in winter. But this particular winter he 
only made one trip to the river. All his energies 

281 


Northern Neighbors 

were bent on the “grand” new house he was 
building. The generous advance of supplies 
given him enabled him to take in a less for¬ 
tunate friend for the winter, and to “feed and 
find” him in return for his labor. Jack Frost 
also was generous; the snow was deeper than 
usual and though the house was not finished 
when the fish set in in June, Ky had a new boat 
built and Joe Marshland brought him a motor 
on credit which should enable him at least to 
double his catch (of fish). 

Unfortunately, the summer turned out to be 
very late. Easterly winds kept the Arctic floe 
ice hugging the shore till the middle of August. 
Further north the fleet was very “well fished” 
and cod was on the Coast in great abundance. 
But the ice-jam held obstinately on the Peace- 
haven fishing grounds, and when the reckon¬ 
ing day came, Ky was only able to make a 
moderate settling, while his advance of the 
previous winter and the cost of the motor 
engine left him in debt, without any supplies 
for the oncoming winter except what he could 
get on credit. 


282 


Sou’west by West 


ii 

During the summer a company from the 
South which had obtained timber concessions 
in the Hinchinbrook River valley had sent 
down a schooner, the Rose of Kircaldy, to sur¬ 
vey their area and to erect stores and stages for 
next year’s operations. She had been anchored 
all the season off the Macleod’s house, and 
the strangers had been visiting between the 
ship and the house. The advent of a foreign 
schooner was an entirely new experience to the 
settlers, and almost everything, that elsewhere 
was insignificant and commonplace, was won¬ 
derful and big to the Macleod family. Still 
their native simplicity, hospitality, and un¬ 
sophisticated trustfulness broke down any 
possible social differences, and intimacies had 
grown up that were never suspected by the old 
Scotchman. 

Before the fishing was over the ship had 
gone and the impetuous Ky had been far too 
eager to make a good voyage to lose any days 
running up to Hinchinbrook, even if he had for 

283 


Northern Neighbors 

one moment thought that there might be any 
reason to do so. Ilis spirit was of the kind that 
feared no rival among his peers, and the com¬ 
ing of the strange vessel hadn’t even inter¬ 
ested him. Yet though the Rose of Kircaldy, 
when she left the bay, carried no cargo of 
lumber or other like produce of the Coast, 
she took with her, alas, that which to one 
man meant more than aught else in our lonely 
shore, for she had on board the heart of Nora 
Macleod. 

After the fall “settling” Ky Transome re¬ 
turned to his house. Night found him anxious 
and worried, a new experience to a nature that 
had always taken every experience that came 
along with a heart as light as a skylark’s in 
springtime. He wasn’t accustomed to intro¬ 
spection, but he realized now there were two 
Ky’s tugging at one another in him. The 
new house, it was true, was not quite finished, 
but a week or two would make it ready for 
habitation. He longed to stay home for the 
winter. It was only a few hours’ run to Hinch- 
inbrook, and this winter he felt he could easily 

284 


Sou’west by West 

spare time to run over occasionally, and culti¬ 
vate the good graces of the old Scotchman. 
He had never for a moment had any reason to 
suppose that Nora herself could possibly be 
anything but glad to share his life and home. 
Indeed the simplicity that had been part of 
her greatest attraction to the mate of the Rose 
of Kircaldy, had really justified Ky in suppos¬ 
ing so. Hadn’t Nora always walked out with 
him alone whenever he had visited the Brook, 
a custom which our Coast accepts as the out¬ 
ward and visible sign of acceptance before the 
definite promise is asked for? 

On the other hand, there was no money to 
be earned if he stayed home. He had all the 
logs and wood he needed, and Joe Marshland 
in the kindness of his heart had offered him a 
berth on the Kitty Clover, his schooner that 
was to carry a load of dried fish to Greece. 
Fifty dollars a month and all found meant a 
mint of money to Ky. It practically meant the 
furnishing of the new house, and the girl he 
loved at the head of his own table. 

The Kitty would not be loaded for a week 

285 


Northern Neighbors 

even if the weather held dry every day. With 
his new motor boat he could run up, explain 
matters to Nora and be back in time. He would 
be a traveled man when he returned, a man 
who had been in foreign parts aboard. He 
could bring back fine things, such as from time 
to time he had seen the crews of foreigners 
have. It was a mighty hard wrench to a lad 
who had never been off the Coast. Now that 
there was a question of his leaving, every stick 
and stone seemed to cry out to him to stay. He 
had no notion before that he, Ky Transome, 
was “soft inside” like a girl. But now he 
found that his very soul cleaved to the dust 
of Peacehaven, and it was a disheveled and 
wearied Ky that left before sunrise next morn¬ 
ing to carry the news of his decision to Hinch- 
inbrook. 

It seemed ages before he passed the Narrows, 
and the house among the trees at the wide 
mouth came to view. On landing he could 
scarcely stay to cover up the precious engine 
and moor the boat, so that she would take no 
harm from bumping. It was an impatient, 

286 


Sou’west by West 

excited youth that burst into the Macleod 
house calling out “Nora!” somewhat to the 
dismay of the old man who was busy cleaning 
fox traps. 

“Are ye no well, Ky? Or what’s wrong with 
ye? Ye look like a wolverine that’s got one leg 
in a trap.” 

“Where’s Nora, Uncle Sandy? I’m going 
overseas in the Kitty Clover for Joe Marsh¬ 
land, and I reckon I’ll be away all spring.” 

“What’s crazy in ye, Ky? Is home no good 
enough for ye that ye must be taking to your 
roving ways again?” 

“No, Uncle, that’s not fair. I only made 
half a voyage this summer and I’m to get fifty 
dollars and found on the vessel.” 

“Well, maybe you’d better be telling Nora 
that. For I’m no so sure but it wasn’t herself 
that nearly went too. They were more than 
friendly, they visitors from the Rose of Kir- 
caldy when they bade good-bye.” And the old 
man’s eyelids trembled as he looked away. 

The words brought Ky up “all standing.” A 
sensation such as he had never felt before 

287 


Northern Neighbors 

seemed instantly to stab him in the breast. 
Nora go overseas, and she not tell him! He 
seemed so really knocked out, that Uncle 
Sandy’s soft heart smote him, and he dropped 
his work and insisted on Ky having a “wee 
drap o’ medicine” from his private chest. 

“You’re looking better the noo, laddie,” 
he said heartily as Ky sat with the empty glass 
in his hand looking straight into space before 
him, “Nora will be down in a minute. It’s 
tidying up she is, I’m thinking.” 

“Tidying up? ” It was a new process strange 
to Ky’s experience. Quick as lightning he 
guessed it was some newfangled fashion the 
strangers had taught her, and he could scarcely 
keep from crying out with the pain of it. 

The Nora that came down to greet him he 
recognized at once was no longer the Nora he 
had left last. She was gentle and kind and 
seemed sorry for him, but he was sensitive as 
a wounded animal and he knew the dreadful 
thing that was looming up ahead of him. 

“I’m thinking of going overseas for the win¬ 
ter, Nora,” he stammered, marveling at his 

288 


Sou’west by West 

own voice, as if it belonged to some one else, 
and not to himself, Ky, the devil-may-care 
leader of every adventure on a coast that 
abounded in them. 

“We’ll miss you, Ky,” replied the girl, 
“though it’s not often you visited us of late,” 
she added, as if to atone for the “we.” “Have 
you got to go, or why do you choose this 
winter before the new folk for the lumber will 
be coming here?” 

Ky’s was the kind of mind that is used to the 
solitudes. It isn’t accustomed to ask for verbal 
explanations; like the animals in their virgin 
forest, it doesn’t have to be told things in 
words, it just knows things and acts instantly 
by intuition. 

“Yes, Nora, I have got to go,” and again he 
was amazed at the tone of his own voice. It was 
like a man gasping for air. “I want a change,” 
he added. “Maybe I’ll be back in the spring; 
maybe I’ll stay by the ship and learn a little 
of the things that the foreigners know.” For 
Ky’s heart was comparing himself now with 
the marvels that the Coast people are so apt 

289 


Northern Neighbors 

to consider those from “ foreign parts aboard.” 
Meanwhile this same way of the Coast stood the 
girl in good stead. Fully realizing that words 
were useless, she was already laying a white 
cloth on the table and putting extra polish on 
the already shining glazed earthenware teapot. 

“Sit right in, Ky, you’ll be needing a mug 
up after the journey even if you didn’t have 
to row. My! but I’m crazy to see the motor 
boat go.” 

The old man had left them and only the 
sound of the jingling traps in the next room 
answered her. Ky, far more stunned than 
when the loaded komatik had overrun him on 
the Grebe’s Nest Hill, mechanically drew the 
chair to the table and sat down. He was like an 
animal, struck on the head by a spring trap 
but not in any way held by it, which will often 
lie down dazed by the snare, and allow the 
trapper to catch him in the open. 

The whole way up the bay he had been 
fancying the glory of Nora’s face as she for the 
first time held the helm of a real motor boat, 
tearing along in the smooth water of the estu- 

290 


Sou’west by West 

ary, fairly annihilating space; and the flush of 
victory in her blue eyes as they just laughed 
at the long weary miles of rowing that had 
become the physical penalty of the day’s rou¬ 
tine work of her father’s fishery. Ivy had seen 
himself sitting by her, the master of the new 
mysterious force, while he read in the depths 
of those eyes a new realization of dependence 
and of confidence which the strong so in¬ 
stinctively love from the weak. Vaguely and 
for the second time he was realizing there were 
two Ky’s within him, the dual personality, one 
almost compelling him to fight at all costs for 
his own hand, the other, with the strength of 
still waters that run deep, urging him to think 
first and only of the girl he loved. 

The simple meal, as automatically partaken 
of on entering a strange house on our Coast as 
one would take off one’s hat at home, carried, 
however, the usual stimulating reaction. The 
inevitable pipe, that he found himself smoking 
when he had once more returned to the settle, 
or window seat, seemed to steady him like the 
snow Shem Lovejoy had rubbed on his head 

291 


Northern Neighbors 

at Silver Falls. Like Feather Top with the 
old witch’s tobacco, each draw at the pipe 
seemed to bring him nearer to earth. As he sat 
there watching the girl quietly clearing away 
the things oft the table, all that was real 
love for her in him surged up and bade the 
shallow, selfish Ky “begone.” Still he said 
nothing, wondering what armistice the victor 
might safely dare, and yet reserve some con¬ 
cession for the vanquished. 

“Nora,” he ventured at last, “will you let 
me run you to Separation Point? The new 
boat can go there and back in half an hour. 
She’s named for you, the Nora, and you must 
be the first girl to hold her helm for me. Then 
I must be going. Joe Marshland’s offer only 
holds till to-night. He’ll be filling the berth 
unless I sign on before to-morrow.” 

“Oh, Ky, may I tell Dad?” and she fairly 
danced out, relieving for the moment the tense 
situation. 

Ky rose and paced the room, every detail 
of its familiar setting speaking to him just as 
each twig and mark on the trail grips the trap- 

292 


Sou’west by West 

per on his rounds. Ilis only half-conquered 
soul hungered for something to carry with 
him. Something more personal than any mere 
photograph could be. His eyes surveyed the 
familiar room, and then suddenly he realized 
there was a new picture on the wall. Under 
ordinary circumstances his alert eyes would 
have noticed it long ago. He stepped up to it 
now and examined it. A young man — a man 
not bred on the Coast — a sailor though dressed 
in mufti, a strong handsome face. He liked it. 
Honesty looked through the dark eyes. He 
needed no explanation. And he knew he could 
never forget it. 

Nora had returned without his hearing her 
while he still stood looking at it. Too late 
to back out, she turned and rattled some 
plates in the dresser, pretending to rearrange 
them. 

“All right, Ky, Dad's willing. Let’s go right 
away. I can’t wait a minute. I won’t want a 
hat,” and she fled precipitately, leaving him 
doubtful, as he watched her through the win¬ 
dow tripping through the trees to the stage 

293 



Northern Neighbors 

where the boat was berthed, whether she knew 
he had guessed her secret or not. 

“Good-bye, Uncle Sandy, I’ll think of you 
a lot the winter. See Nora doesn’t fret. Time 
is short, if I’m to reach Peacehaven to-night, 
for it may be rough on the outside after dark. 
I’ll land Nora on the stage when we get back. 
Good-bye,” and Ky, turning his head to hide 
the unaccustomed dampness of his eyes, fairly 
bolted from the house and down the pathway 
— glad he had arranged not to face that photo- 
graph again. 

It was all over so soon. Ky had never be¬ 
fore felt a boat could go too quickly. Only a 
little while ago, he would have dropped the 
wrench cheerfully into the delicate mechanism 
to prolong the tempting pleasure. It was just 
such pranks that had made him the idol of the 
young men that he had so long been. Indeed 
he would once gladly have headed to sea and 
like young Lochinvar gayly borne off his bride 
willy-nilly from under the very eyes of the 
enemy. Anyhow he kept his tryst so jealously 
that if there had been land folk watching, folk 

294 


Sou’west by West 

with instincts dulled by the incessant justle 
and jostle of civilization until words are neces¬ 
sary to express ideas, they might have thought 
the two young people were parting under a 
misunderstanding. 

In due time the Kitty Clover sailed, Reze- 
kiah Transome rating as A.B. and master of 
the starboard watch, for he could box a com¬ 
pass and splice a rattling with the best of any 
“foreigners.” The season proved late, and wet 
weather prevented the people of other harbors 
storing their fish aboard. December had set in 
before Captain Ireland got his final clearance 
papers and with a light leading wind fared 
forth on his trans-Atlantic trip. 

Things went well the first day, the weather 
being fair. The second day out their fears of 
fog and strong winds were, however, justified. 
Sails were shortened, and hatches reclewed 
down, for the steep seas that drop straight on 
to low-waisted vessels, however well they may 
be handled, have to be looked for north of the 
“ roaring forties.” The skipper was giving extra 
attention to the courses, and keeping now and 

295 


Northern Neighbors 

again an eye himself on the helmsman of the 
crew whom he was trying out for the first time. 
Ky was at the wheel. It was broad daylight, 
and the ship was running free when suddenly 
without warning the skipper challenged the 
course. 

“What’s her head?” 

“Southwest by west,” was the cheery an¬ 
swer. 

“Southwest by west? That’s not her 
course,” and the skipper dived below to make 
sure he was not mistaken. 

“West by north, four points in the wind’s 
eye,” he roared at the astonished Ky. “Over 
with her. What in God’s name made you steer 
there?” 

“It’s the course the watch gave me,” an¬ 
swered Ky, “when I took her, Skipper.- That’s 
all I know.” 

And Ky, unfamiliar with the correct disci¬ 
pline of the deep sea, almost added a remark 
that might legally have been logged as muti¬ 
nous. 

“Fetch the last watch,” shouted the skipper 

£96 


Sou’west by West 

to the mate, who, it being the dog watch, was 
busy overhauling every knot, sheet, lanyard, 
and line for the hundredth time. 

4 ‘What course did you give Transome when 
you went below?” demanded the skipper. 

“Southwest by west, sir,” answered the 
man who happened to be summoned by the 
mate. 

“Who gave it you?” 

“The man you sent up, sir.” 

“I sent up, sir? I sent no one up. How long 
did you steer it?” 

“After the man told me, sir, about the last 
half of the watch.” 

“Put her a point more to windward, then 
west by north,” growled the skipper, who, 
though he had no recollection of having sent 
any one, accepted the mate’s statement at its 
face value, there being no possible reason to 
doubt his motives, the wind being fair enough 
on either course. 

Several hours later, it was again Ky’s “trick 
at the wheel.” The Kitty Clover was close- 
hauled and making very poor weather of it. 

297 


Northern Neighbors 

Her heavy deadweight of salt codfish left little 
life in the ordinarily fine little sea boat. Ky 
was heartily praying that some veer of the wind 
might allow him to ease her up a little, or he 
felt he would have to call the skipper, who was 
asleep below, and ask whether it would not be 
safer to heave to until morning, when he heard 
steps coming along the deck toward the wheel- 
house. 

“Ease the wheel. Put her southwest.” 

Gladly enough he followed the new order. 
He was silently congratulating himself over 
the relief to the movement of the vessel when 
he heard the skipper stumbling up the com¬ 
panion, wakened almost immediately by the 
change of motion in the vessel. 

“Fining away a bit?” he queried, stepping 
hastily into the wheelhouse to avoid the water 
still swashing about on deck. “Wind’s veered, 
I see. She is reaching along fine.” And then 
suddenly his eye fell on the course Ky was 
steering. 

“Southwest?” queried the skipper, “wasn’t 
it west by north I gave the last watch?” 

298 


Sou’west by West 

“Yes, sir,” said the master of the starboard 
watch; “there it is up on the slate,” and he 
pointed to the new institution in the chart 
room since he had been caught steering four 
points out. 

“Then who in the devil’s name gave you 
leave to change it? You’ve eased her to have 
a quiet watch, damn you! I’ll log you for it as 
sure as my name’s Ireland. Haul her up or I’ll 
call the mate and have you put in irons.” 

So torrential had been the skipper’s out¬ 
burst that the seaman hadn’t had one chance 
to say anything. He honestly thought the 
skipper must be drunk. It wasn’t half an 
hour ago he had himself sent up to have the 
course changed. 

“You — you — you — ” he stammered at 
last, but the skipper would not hear him. 

“Don’t stand there answering me back, you 
gibbering idiot!” he shouted. “Put the wheel 
over or I’ll crack your skull in with the hand¬ 
spike!” and in a storm of fury he actually 
reached over and got one that was stowed be¬ 
hind the locker. The ship was once more nos- 

299 


Northern Neighbors 

ing the seas, and the skipper swearing that 
he’d keep her at it if it knocked her ugly head 
off and sent the helmsman straight to Davy 
Jones’s locker. 

If any one dared to alter the course again 
without he did so himself, he’d send the whole 
lot to a region whose atmosphere would be 
some contrast to the Great Banks in winter¬ 
time. 

Though Hezekiah’s mind worked slowly, 
he was chewing the cud of injustice while the 
angry master stood over him. He had about 
come to the point where he felt there was no 
good making any explanation. Why not let 
the skipper think as he liked? He wouldn’t 
gratify him by showing he cared enough to ex¬ 
plain. The more he pondered over it, the 
more strange it seemed to him, and then he 
remembered he hadn’t actually seen the face of 
the man who called him to change the course. 
He had noticed the voice too was somewhat 
changed from the ordinary tones of his watch- 
mate, and that the man had come from the 
direction of the skipper’s cabin, and not from 

300 


Sou’west by West 

« 

forward, where he had himself told him to 
stay, and keep an eye out for possible ice. 

Moreover the skipper had calmed down a 
little now, seeing no inclination on the man’s 
part to ease the vessel, in spite of several heavy 
and really ugly seas that she had taken over 
the bow, and fairly drowned the decks before 
the scuppers could free them. Curiosity in him 
at last got the master over sulkiness. 

“Why did you send up to alter the course 
if you didn’t want it done? I’m no chicken. 
I’d steer her to hell for all I care, if you just 
say so,” he growled. 

“Send, you fool? I never sent any one. 
You’ve been drinking again, and that’s no 
excuse either. I’ll have your kit searched be¬ 
fore you’re an hour older, and it’s a prohibi¬ 
tion ship she’ll be till I see you all in irons in 
Gibraltar for endangering her and her cargo.” 

This proved too much for Transome. 

“Drunk yourself,” he replied to the aston¬ 
ished captain. “I tell you, you sent up to alter 
the course. I’ll swear to it to my dying day, 
and then too if I’m damned for it.” 


301 


Northern Neighbors 

The directness of the reply succeeded some¬ 
what in getting the skipper’s attention, and 
he listened while Ky finished his tale. The 
other deckhand, summoned to the wheelhouse, 
swore he had never left his post; that he had 
neither been drinking nor asleep, and had neither 
seen nor heard any one on deck but himself 
since he had come up at midnight. The crew 
were all called and examined in the skipper’s 
cabin in the morning. None of them had been 
on deck, having no reason or desire to do so in 
a dirty night during their watch below. 

Captain Ireland was puzzled. He was a 
Christian, and of course didn’t believe in or 
fear ghosts, but all the same he knew people 
who did and he couldn’t find any solution to 
the perplexing statements of his men. 

“No courses are to be altered in future,” he 
ordered at last, “unless I come myself and 
order them; and mind you the first man who 
hears orders to do otherwise will be put in 
irons till we make the land, unless he calls me 
right away and says so.” 

And there the matter was allowed to drop 

302 


Sou’west by West 

and all hoped sincerely they had heard the last 
of it. But that night it was Ky’s turn again 
to get counter orders. The midnight watch 
this time was his. It was not a really dark 
night. All hands except his chum forward 
were asleep below. The wind was fairer, and 
he was leaning over the wheel humming to 
himself as the Kitty Clover bounded cheerily 
along, when suddenly he saw a man in sailor’s 
dress standing looking into the chart room, 
gazing right at him, and then he heard him 
distinctly say, “Give her tw T o points to lee¬ 
ward, sir, make it southwest again.” He 
seemed to be pleading rather than giving an 
order, however. 

Oddly enough, Ky remembered somewhere 
having seen that face before, but where it was 
at first he couldn’t recall. Then suddenly a 
vision of the room at Ilinchinbrook flashed 
across his memory, and he saw once more 
Nora going out to ask her father if she might 
go with him to Separation Point, and himself 
walking up and down the room till a picture 
caught his eye, a photograph of a stranger, 

303 


Northern Neighbors 

that had burnt itself into his memory. Now 
he recognized it. The man who had asked him 
to alter the course, and had stood looking right 
into his eyes, was the same man, the man who 
had stolen Nora from him. Hailing his chum 
at once, he gave him the new course and then 
went hurriedly down and roused the skipper, 
and told him what he had done and why. 
The skipper was silent a moment while he put 
together in his mind the odd experiences of the 
voyage. “You’re right, sonny,” he said at 
last; “head her into the southwest. Keep a 
sharp lookout and call me instantly if you see 
anything.” 

The hours of Ky’s watch passed like light¬ 
ning. He had done most of the watching him¬ 
self while his chum steered the course. His 
eyes were so tired of peering into the darkness 
when he went below at last, that he could 
scarcely close them, and no sleep came to him 
when he turned into his hammock. As the 
hours went by, he just lay kicking, expecting 
every moment to be called again. He had 
fairly chewed clean through the mouthpiece 

304 


Sou’west by West 

of his faithful pipe when “All hands on deck/’ 
rang down the companion. 

“Sail close on the weather bow!” 

Ky’s toilet took him only long enough to 
leap into his huge sea boots, the sole item of 
his clothing besides his oily frock that he had 
removed, and he was already lying out in the 
cathead, peering into the darkness that pre¬ 
cedes day, before the skipper himself hurry¬ 
ing on deck shouted his order to “heave her 
to and stand by.” Twice wdiile hauling the 
sheets home Ky jammed his hands in the 
sheaves by not watching what he was doing, 
and while aloft housing the fore-topgallant sail, 
he almost fell from the yard, being unable to 
keep his eyes on anything but the dim outline 
of the stranger. 

“She’s in trouble. There’s a flag in the rig¬ 
ging,” he made out at last, when the Kitty 
Clover, with her helm hard down and her 
fore-staysail aweather, worked her way close 
up under the lee of the stranger. They could 
make out that the mainmast was gone, and 
that her sails were all torn to ribbons, and that 

305 


Northern Neighbors 

her decks were practically awash; every wave of 
any size making a clear breach over the victim. 

Slowly the Kitty Clover forged ahead while 

the, water-logged craft drove ever steadily to 

* 

leeward. 

“There are six men in the rigging,” shouted 
^he mate in Ky’s ear, “it’ll be touch and go if 
we get ’em. I’m doubting if she’ll float till 
daylight.” 

“No fear, Andy, they’re not fixed to die this 
time. You can put that in your pipe.” 

For to Ky they were already safely in the 
Kitty Clover’s cabin. 

The rescue was no ordinary one — to launch 
a boat was almost impossible. The bilge got 
smashed against the ship’s side before the boat 
had time to reach the water. It was patched 
with felt and tar and tinned over in an in¬ 
credibly short time. On the second attempt, 
Ky, lowering it, was able to keep it off. To 
venture alongside the wreck in the darkness 
and heavy sea, was itself a deed worthy of 
heroes. But it was effected and the perishing 
men were somehow safely transferred. For 

306 


Sou’west by West 

the captain, knowing Ky’s story, had per¬ 
mitted him to carry out the rescue. After 
safely throwing out their boat, they had as a 
matter of fact let it drop astern with a long, 
light line attached to help hold her to wind¬ 
ward, while the three men in her worked her 
across the bow of the sinking ship. The plan 
saved the day, for the shipwrecked men catch¬ 
ing the line with a boat-hook were able to 
haul the painter aboard and one after an¬ 
other to drop from the rigging into the boat. 
While the Kitty Clover, cutting the line adrift 
as soon as they made out the men were aboard, 
paid off, ran to leeward, picked up the men as 
they drifted before the sea, the line acting as a 
sea anchor, which once more was hauled up 
with a grapple, as the boat drifted by. As his 
boat had passed close under her cutwater, Ky 
had caught the letters of the ship’s name on 
the rail. They read the Rose of Kircaldy. A 
minute later as she was falling in toward her 
quarter, Ky got a moment to look up over¬ 
head, and there once more looking right down 
into his face were the eyes of the picture in 

307 


Northern Neighbors 

Hinchinbrook, and of the sailor who had told 
him to steer southwest. 

John Saunders recovered under Ky’s tender 
care. Indeed it was in Ky’s dry clothes and 
Ky’s own bunk and largely through Ky’s con¬ 
stant care that John was weaned back to 
life after the terrible three days’ exposure and 
hunger in the Rose’s rigging. While slowly 
fighting his way back to life, he discovered 
Ky’s secret. Silent as the grave, Ky never 
mentioned a word of his own part in the drama, 
but Saunders, who was constantly wanting to 
hear more of the girl he loved, did not fail to 
notice the other’s reticence. He could not have 
been a true Highlander had he failed to do so. 
As a matter of fact, like many another of that 
ilk, he had a strange power of second sight. 

He declared to Ky that he never had any 
consciousness of the strange projection of him¬ 
self on to the Kitty Clover; and we have had 
no chance to ask him, for John Saunders never 
came back to the Labrador. 


308 


DEEDS OF DERRING DO 

The schooner Silver Queen, Skipper Ambrose 
Loveday, was in serious trouble. Leading the 
van as usual of a great Labrador fleet of nearly 
a hundred vessels bound north for the summer 
fishery, she had been the first in thick fog to 
run up against the heavy arctic ice field, which 
a sudden change to a strong northeasterly 
wind was driving rapidly in upon the coast. 
Real heavy ice it was, too; the huge pans, some 
nearly half a mile long, had sides like preci¬ 
pices, and were of that steely blue ice that 
cuts the soft planking of our northern vessels 
like a knife. 

The man at the masthead who was conning 
the schooner reported, “Ice everywhere; ne’er 
a drop of water to be seen.” The floe was run¬ 
ning in before the wind at a good knot an hour, 
which, when once its inner edge brings up 
against the cliffs that flank our eastern shore, 
meant pressure that would crush a vessel’s ribs 

309 


Northern Neighbors 

as a hydraulic press would those of a mos¬ 
quito. 

Nor was there the faintest chance to put 
about and run back, for the big fleet lay too 
far inside the bay, and the skipper could make 
out that the feet of the mighty cliffs of Cape St. 
Peter, away on the horizon, were battling al¬ 
ready with the southern edge of the great ice 
field. Their only safety lay in getting anchorage, 
before it was too late, under the lee of a group 
of islands. The Silver Queen came about incon¬ 
tinently, and the fleet, warned by her move¬ 
ments, tacked also, heading right in for the 
land. Having a better offing from the ice than 
the Silver Queen, all the others safely reached 
the open water in the wake of the islands. 

The poor Silver Queen was caught in the 
treacherous embrace of two large pans of ice, a 
big spur pierced her side below the water fine, 
and then as quickly slacking off again, left her 
in a sinking condition. Working at the pumps 
as only men in such dire need can work, the 
crew succeeded in keeping her afloat until she 
rounded the point of the land, where, with her 

310 


Deeds of Derring Do 

decks already awash, they ran her on the rocks 
to prevent her sinking. 

A host of comrades in a swarm of motor 
boats were soon around the crippled ship, like 
bees round honey. Quickly and efficiently, a 
big sail was sunk alongside and hauled under 
her keel, and wrapped around her to cover the 
hole. Extra pumps, brought aboard, worked 
so fast that the w T ater, attempting to rush in, 
drove the sail into the breach, and gain was 
slowly made. After some patching and lighten¬ 
ing of the hull, the schooner was freed enough 
of water to be towed up into a shallow arm of 
the roadstead where, on the top of high water, 
she was safely beached. 

Alas, the salt, eight hundred dollars’ worth 
and absolutely essential for the voyage, had 
melted out, and much of her provisions were 
ruined. Only a spontaneous collection of salt, 
taken up by all the other vessels, enabled the 
skipper to proceed with the voyage at all, and 
even then prospects for a Christmas dinner 
when he returned from the long cruise were 
anything but rosy. 


311 


Northern Neighbors 

“Jeannie,” he wrote to his wife, “it’s you 
that will have to come to St. John’s to do t’ 
spending vfall, even if us do use our new salt. 
Else there’ll be nothing but dru diet for us t’ 
winter, I’m vlowing.” 

Skipper Ambrose thought a great deal of his 
home 44 up South,” where three children now 
detained the young wife, who at first had al¬ 
ways shared his voyages, cheering and inspir¬ 
ing him in his troubles. 

As good luck would have it, after an anxious 
three weeks, in which the plucky little schooner 
cruised many hundreds of miles in the vain 
search for 44 a voyage,” she ran right into the 
great body of codfish that every year comes 
browsing along out of the Gulf into the At¬ 
lantic, through the Straits of Belle Isle, as soon 
as those waters get too warm to suit the bait 
fish on which they feed. Skipper Ambrose 
managed to send news of his better fortune 
home by a vessel that got her load early, and 
which he had been lucky enough to intercept 
on her voyage south. 

44 There’ll be enough yet, Jeannie, please God, 

312 


Deeds of Derring Do 

if you does the laying out of it; and maybe old 
Santa won’t have to pass St. Rode’s after all,” 
was his message. 

The masts of the Silver Queen had hardly 
topped the horizon of St. Rode’s Harbor on her 
return early in October, before the whole Love- 
day household were somehow aware of the fact; 
and so quickly did Jeannie have the three “all 
spruced up,” that she was alongside with them 
in the boat before the anchor chain had stopped 
running through the schooner’s hawsepipe. 

“Yes, us have used our salt, lass,” said the 
skipper proudly. “And us would have used 
twice as much if us had had it. But the old 
ship got a nasty squeeze in t’ ice, and in spite 
of the patch us put on her, she wasted a power 
of it again whiles us was beating about after 
t’ fish. Guess you’se’ll have to come along, 
Jeannie, if t’ money’s to reach to Christmas 
t’ings — Can’t leave the kiddies? Oh, the 
neighbors will keep an eye on they. Us won’t 
be long anyhow. Johnny needs tending? Well, 
you’se can bring Johnny along if you’se feared 
to leave him home.” 


313 


Northern Neighbors 

Jeannie’s protests were all in vain, and in 
spite of her better judgment she yielded at last 
to her husband’s importunity. Thus it hap¬ 
pened that when the fish had been dried, and 
marketed in St. John’s, and all the money 
spent, the Silver Queen left one fine morning, 
again northward bound, with more than the 
usual modest quantity of bunting at her mast¬ 
head, to signify that the skipper’s wife and lad 
were aboard with him, and that with a well- 
stocked vessel and happy hearts they were off 
to spend a merry Christmas in their little home 
on the northern coast. 

Everything was stowed away snugly, every 
hatch was closely battened down, and by dark 
the Silver Queen was speeding along north in 
smooth water under the land, before a spank¬ 
ing westerly wind. With the advent of night 
the wind freshened, veering slightly against 
them, so that sail was shortened, sheets hauled 
down, and the passengers early tucked away 
securely in their bunks. Toward midnight 
the breeze freshened to a northwesterly gale 
and, double-reefed both fore and aft, the little 

314 


Deeds of Derring Do 

schooner was clinging on to the land to hold 
the shelter of the cliffs as long as possible. 

The powerful light of Bonavista Cape was 
now abeam and, flashing down from its lofty 
perch on the hilltops, warned the skipper that 
soon he would pass the protecting shelter of the 
land, and be facing the full force of the gale in 
the open. 

St. Rode’s Harbor lay right ahead. It was 
only thirty miles across to the land that spelled 
home and safety. The ship was stout. Close- 
hauled, she could lay across on the wind. The 
skipper had made this journey so often before 
that to hesitate at crossing never entered his 
mind. Some men would have put about and 
hugged the land, at least until daylight, but 
not so Skipper Ambrose. A few minutes later, 
he and his little ship were facing the full fury of 
the gale as serenely as most of us would face 
our breakfast at home. 

Real typhoons, tornadoes, and cyclones are 
not known in the North. Whether now a rare 
specimen had escaped from its path, or whether 
this was merely the accumulation of force from 

315 


Northern Neighbors 

the pent-up fury of the wind buffeting around 
the mighty cliffs of the headland, it is impossi¬ 
ble to say. But suddenly the good ship began to 
turn over. At first she just lay down as every 
good boat will do in heavy wind. But alas, 
this time she was failing to recover herself. It 
seemed for all the world as if some great in¬ 
visible hand were pressing her slowly down. 
She shivered and struggled like some small 
wild animal under the paw of a mighty lion — 
all to no purpose. Steadily, inch by inch, down 
she went. She had already gone altogether too 
far for recovery when a sea, sweeping over her, 
broke right into her mainsail, snapped off 
her mainmast at the gammon, and slowly the 
half-drowned little craft righted herself once 
more. 

One moment’s hesitation, while, half full of 
water, she lay rolling in the trough of the sea, 
her broadside exposed to the great combers 
that came sweeping by, must have sealed her 
fate forever then and there. But the helm was 
up, the fore-sheet out to the knot, and the bat¬ 
tened hull running straight before the seas out 

316 


Deeds of Derring Do 

into the open Atlantic while a landsman would 
have been recovering his feet — or before he 
could have guessed what had happened. 

Down below decks, everything seemed quiet 
and secure again now, and the skipper’s shout 
down the companion to his wife to keep right 
on sleeping was, he thought, all that was needed 
to restore her confidence. 

Though the winter boxes and barrels had 
been so well stowed, and were so tightly 
jammed from the ballast deck to the beams 
that very little of the ballast itself had stirred 
when the vessel “hove down,” things were far 
from cheerful, the pumps scarcely gaining on 
the water in the well. 

The wreckage was successfully cut away 
without piercing her hull, and the following 
seas so far made no breach over her. But she 
was only a small schooner; she had been badly 
crushed in the ice in the spring; she had only 
one mast left; and it was already winter “north 
of the roaring forties.” The only possible way 
to keep her afloat was to run her right on before 
the wind into the open ocean, and even then 

317 



Northern Neighbors 

there was no hope unless they were seen and 
taken off by some passing steamer. 

Daylight brought little comfort to the 
stricken ship. Gallantly she ran on before 
mountains of water which towered away above 
stern, and which every now and again broke 
fiercely just under her counter. The skipper 
had lashed himself firmly to the helm, where he 
was soaked to the skin by the tail ends of many 
of the seas that lurched over the taffrail in the 
darkness. Not for one second had he allowed 
even the mate to relieve him, knowing that 
at any moment the lives of all on board might 
hang on a single turn of the wheel. 

The second mate and deckhand, almost 
played out, were still working at the pumps 
when at last, after daylight, the captain went 
forward for a moment. “Go below, lads,” he 
said, “and get some dry clothes. She’s riding 
all right, but I want you both forward again 
as soon as you’re ready. Her decks are badly 
strained, and she’s making a lot of water for¬ 
ward.” 

“All right, Skipper.” And the two weary 


318 


Deeds of Derring Do 

men, glad of an excuse to forget their troubles 
for a moment, fell over one another in their 
haste to get first to the fo’castle. 

The tough old mainmast, before breaking 
off, had so strained the deck that great gaps 
were left through which the water was pouring, 
and accounted for the constantly rising water 
in the well. Temporary relief was secured by 
clamping heavy canvas over the seams, and 
every one’s heart rose when once more the 
eternal swash in the bilges was silenced for the 
time being — for it is a dirge which is enough 
to discourage the stoutest of hearts in time. 

Though there was no abating of the storm 
as the day wore on, there was no time for anx¬ 
iety. Not only had the pumps to be worked 
incessantly, and the decks to be caulked, but 
the foremast, on which even their temporary 
safety depended, had been so badly strained 
when the mainmast went by the board, that 
its rigging had to be reinforced, and its pre¬ 
venter stays rigged to hold even the bare pole 
standing. Tangled rags of the sails, flapping 
dismally against the shrouds, were the sole 

319 


Northern Neighbors 

remnants of the ship’s canvas. Every ounce 
of help being necessary to save the ship, no one 
even thought of food. Meanwhile, rough as it 
was, they were able to keep her running directly 
before the seas, and so smother the movement 
of the vessel sufficiently to make the skipper, 
who found only a rare moment to shout a 
word of cheer down the hatchway, fully be¬ 
lieve that he was keeping his wife in ignorance 
of the real state of things on deck. With that 
end in view he had even spared the cook for a 
few minutes to carry her food as usual. 

That through the second awful night his wife 
should still be staying quietly below was an in¬ 
finite comfort to the brave heart on deck. Lit¬ 
tle was he aware “what every woman knows.” 
Yet the realization that his vessel was sail¬ 
ing to certain destruction in mid-Atlantic, and 
that he was himself responsible for carry¬ 
ing her to seemingly sure death, was almost 
more than he could bear. The loss of the salt, 
the outfit, anything and everything that had 
gone in the spring misadventure, and which 
had meant terrible losses to him, he had taken 

320 


Deeds of Derring Do 

like every true seaman takes adversity — only 
as a stimulus to more effective action. But as 
with most sailors, under a rough exterior lay 
a sensitive heart, and every moment that his 
whole mind w T as not absorbed in the fight with 
the seas the thought that it was partly his own 
selfishness that was responsible for his wife 
and child being aboard the doomed schooner 
tortured him like a fresh knife stab. 

So the second night wore interminably away. 
Years of experience had made it second nature 
to Skipper Ambrose to handle the Silver Queen. 
Since the time when, with his father and 
brothers, he had built and launched her at the 
head of Birch Inlet, he had sailed her himself 
every season. It was she that had enabled him 
to obtain a home, to find his partner in life, 
and to support his children as they came along. 
She would obey no one as she would him, and 
in these terrible hours he would let no one try. 
The sullenly smooth sea was, he knew, only 
waiting relief from the wind pressure to surge 
once more into mountains that would danger¬ 
ously menace the ship. So again at night he 

321 


Northern Neighbors 

lashed himself to the helm — a very vigil of 
prayer that it is the lot of few men to know. 

The craft was now far out in the Atlantic, 
and the terror of the steep seas on the shallow 
waters of the Great Banks to a vessel in her 
condition was every moment looming up like 
some dread specter that would suddenly over¬ 
power them all. Yet he dared not alter the 
ship’s course one iota to avoid them. Hour after' 
hour the insensate hurricane swept everything 
before it. By morning there was no longer 
any possible hope of clearing the Banks, so they 
must incur the terrible extra risk of opening 
the hatches in order to jettison cargo, and so 
lighten the ship. 

The first streak of dawn was just lighting 
up the face of the watery waste, and the skip¬ 
per, after repeated warnings and instructions, 
had just handed the helm to his second hand, 
and was forward with the mate, helping to 
open and close the main hatch as each barrel 
and box was hauled on deck and flung over the 
side. For the hundredth time he had turned 
round to keep his eye on the helmsman, when 

322 


Deeds of Derring Do 

suddenly he became aware of a woman’s figure 
emerging from the after companion, and ap¬ 
proaching the man at the wheel. She was 
carrying something in her hand. It was a 
cup with a steaming liquid in it. Surely that 
woman could not be Jeannie! She must be 
sleeping at that hour! His mind must be going. 
He dropped the hatch and stood staring be¬ 
fore him into the semi-darkness as if turned 
into a pillar of stone. A moment passed and 
he had not moved a finger. 

“What’s the matter, Skipper?” broke in the 
frightened mate. “ Whatever are you seeing? ” 

All the skipper’s reply was a mechanical 
walk aft as a man might do in a dream. 
“Jeannie,” he found words at last, when he 
had actually touched her arm, “Jeannie, is 
it you? What are you doing on deck this 
weather? It’s no place for you, darling — bad 
enough for us men,” and he put out his hand 
as if to lead her below again. 

Yet he felt somehow as though there were 
no need for it now. She seemed in some way 
different to the gentle little woman of his home. 


Northern Neighbors 

He could not tell quite what it was that was 
strange, but there was a light in her eyes, and 
even a joy, that he felt he had never noticed 
there before. Instead of trying to direct her, 
therefore, he was satisfied just to touch her 
arm again, as if to be quite sure it was herself. 

Then his eye fell on the steaming mug of 
coffee, and he remembered that they had eaten 
nothing for two days, had not even thought 
of it, and instantly there came to his mind the 
picture of a man standing on a wreck he had 
read of, and reminding the crew, “it is now 
fourteen days, and you have eaten nothing.” 
Jeannie had not spoken yet, but somehow he 
felt that he knew exactly what she would say, 
and that he ought to wait for her to speak. 
He could almost hear that man on the wreck, 
now nearly two thousand years ago, going on 
with almost the words in which she was now 
beginning to say: 

“Last night as I lay in my bunk, though I 
thought I was awake, I seemed to be going 
into the door of our own house in St. Rode’s. 
There was no one round so I went upstairs. 

324 


Deeds of Derring Do 

It was early morning, but the children were 
awake, and cried out with joy at seeing me. 
Then they dressed and came downstairs, and 
there was a big rattling at the door, and you 
came stumbling in, carrying a huge pack on 
your back. At first I couldn’t make out what 
you were doing, but when you put down the 
pack and looked up, the children began to 
shout. For your face had become round and 
red and your whiskers long and white, and you 
were growing fatter and fatter. Suddenly I 
knew that we were at home on Christmas Day; 
and somehow we had a power of things for 
Christmas. Then just as I said ‘Thank God’ 
it all vanished away. But it was so real I’m 
certain it’ll be exactly as I’ve said. We must 
all take courage. None of us’ll be drowned.” 

A minute or two passed, the skipper stand¬ 
ing with bowed head and making a fine picture 
in his shining oilskins. It seemed like the 
close of a simple religious service. As his wife 
stopped speaking the two went silently below. 
“I pray you to take some meat, for this is for 
your health,” he could hear the brave old man 

325 


Northern Neighbors 

of his memory saying. Jeannie made no further 
comment — and without at all realizing what 
he was doing he found himself stirring the fire 
in the cabin stove. 

The uneasy motion of the vessel warned 
him that the water was shoaling and the Banks 
getting near. But he had forgotten to worry 
and soon had the kettle refilled and boiling, 
and a fresh pot of steaming coffee brewed. 
Calling all hands except the helmsman, the 
skipper said grace in his simple way and, as in 
the vision of his memory, “then were they all 
of good cheer, and they also took some meat.” 

How deliverance was to come no one could 
possibly guess. Already the scudding ship had 
passed far to the south of the track of steamers. 
All day and yet another night went by — the 
worst night of all in many ways. For the steep 
seas of the Banks curled over more than once 
on to the schooner’s taffrail and the strained 
hull, working more and more under the stress 
and drag of the seas, had allowed the ever- 
increasing quantity of water in the hold to 
gain dangerously on the pumps. It had be- 

32G 


Deeds of Derring Do 

come obvious to all that if help was to come, 
it must be soon. 

When the evening of that third night settled 
down it was only Jeannie’s optimism that 
saved the ship. Beset with their never-ending 
tasks the worn-out crew had not even noticed 
that the skipper’s wife had assumed the role 
of cook. Nor had the exuberance of good things 
that were constantly being passed up to them 
struck them as strange. Never in all her life 
had the Silver Queen seen such days. Sugar 
and milk accompanied the mugs of tea that 
were on draught at all hours of the day and 
night. Alcohol there was none — but the frills 
of Christmas were “flowing” all day on the 
deck of that sinking vessel. For the new cook 
had access to the stock that St. Nicholas had 
destined for St. Rode’s Harbor, and she was 
cheating Father Neptune of them in the only 
way possible. 

Just before daylight on the fourth morning, 
the watch, dashing aft, yelled to the skipper: 
“Steamer’s light on the port bow! Not more 
than a mile away!” There wasn’t a moment 

327 


Northern Neighbors 

to lose, or they would be just as “ships pass¬ 
ing in the night,” for all hands realized that 
the chances of the steamer’s watch seeing, in 
the half darkness, the water-logged fishing boat 
with only one bare stick standing were very 
small indeed. 

But a Newfoundland fisherman, like the na¬ 
tive weasel, is not to be caught napping. In less 
time than it takes to tell, flares were alight 
from end to end of the doomed vessel, and the 
old sealing gun of Skipper Ambrose was bark¬ 
ing out its hoarse appeal as fast as it could be 
reloaded. Realizing that it was the last cast 
of the die, with the skill of his craft he also 
began edging the old hull to windward, which 
had the double advantage of slowing down her 
pace and bringing her more across the steamer’s 
path. An answering flare from the stranger’s 
deck soon set their minds at rest that they had 
been seen. The problem of doing anything to 
help them, however, seemed utterly insoluble; 
only the God-given genius of the sea, and the 
indomitable pluck of British sailors in the face 
of danger could even now possibly save them. 

328 


Deeds of Derring Do 

Dawn found the small and buffeted ocean 
tramp bravely standing by — and the impos¬ 
sible was actually being attempted. Six men 
in a small boat were preparing to be low¬ 
ered over the great rolling iron wall into the 
cauldron of that storm-driven sea. No one 
who has not seen it tried can begin to appreci¬ 
ate the difficulty. To get the boat safely into 
the water and away from the ship’s side is al¬ 
most an impossibility. It is the one great prob¬ 
lem in shipwreck. Untold lives have been lost 
through failure in the attempt to launch the 
boats. Who would have blamed these men, 
who themselves had loved ones dependent on 
them at home, had they decided that the risk 
was unjustifiable? There was neither glory nor 
money if they succeeded, and a terrible death 
“for nothing” if they failed. Why do men of 
the sea do these deeds? Shall such be judged 
hereafter by their creeds? 

This time the launching was successful in 
spite of an awful crash as the boat, hanging at 
full length of the falls, was driven before an 
irresistible mountain of water into the ship’s 

329 


Northern Neighbors 

side; but the straining eyes from the wreck saw 
her sheer off and start drifting down toward 
them. On she came, now visible high in the air, 
topping the crest of a huge comber, and then 
again there was a horrible dread that she 
would never reappear, as the moments went 
by and she was lost from sight amidst the 
steep watery valleys. Suddenly there she was 
again, towering now right above the water¬ 
logged wreck that lay deep in a great chasm 
below her. Surely she must crack like a nut¬ 
shell if they touched. Yet if she was swept by, 
with her would go the last chance for life. 
Again these “common seamen” snatched vic¬ 
tory from the impossible. Two of the steam¬ 
er’s crew had actually leaped aboard, and mak¬ 
ing fast, were literally carrying in their arms 
across that raging gulf a woman and a helpless 
child. The schooner, left without a helmsman, 
had immediately broached to, and the seas 
were already making clean sweeps over her. 

The skipper, who held on till the last, was, 
however, not kept long waiting. The men, 
leaping into space one after the other, and 

330 


Deeds of Derring Do 

being dragged aboard by the rough, deft hands 
of the boat’s crew, even when safely in the boat, 
knew that the difficulty of scaling the lofty 
side of the steamer as she lay rolling to and fro 
in the troughs and crests of the great sea was 
almost insurmountable. The child was lashed 
up in one of the men’s coats,, and somehow 
hauled on deck by a rope. The woman, like the 
men, actually climbed over the rocking side of 
that towering craft by a long dangling rope 
ladder. 

A few days later they were all landed in 
Sydney Harbor, but long before they arrived 
there their story had become common property 
aboard their rescuer, and the sympathies of 
these men of rough exterior had been deeply 
touched. Skipper Ambrose, with his wife, 
child, and crew were soon shipped home as 
wrecked sailors. All their hard-won outfit had 
been lost; even their scanty stock of personal 
clothing had gone. Needless to say, there was 
nothing left for Christmas Day, and the little 
stockings, that were hung up as usual in St. 
Rode’s, were all empty that morning. 

331 


Northern Neighbors 

But it so happened that about two o’clock 
Christmas afternoon, the last mail boat for the 
season butted into the standing ice at the har¬ 
bor mouth. To his intense surprise Skipper 
Ambrose, who had gone off to land the mails 
with his team of dogs, found a large crate 
plainly labeled with his own name. He hauled 
the mysterious package home, and it was 
promptly pried open in the presence of all 
the family. There were packages for all the 
family — not one had been forgotten. A won¬ 
derful jacket and warm gloves were labeled 
“ Mrs. Jean Loveday.” A spanking new 
woollen sweater bore the brief legend “Skip¬ 
per Ambrose”; while on no less than four par¬ 
cels they discovered the name of “Johnnie 
Loveday.” Somehow, even little Phyllis and 
Mary found boxes containing wonderful dolls 
and a real Teddy bear with their names pen¬ 
ciled on them. There were boxes of candies, 
bags of fruit, a tin of cocoa, some sugar, and 
heaven knows what — and the strange thing 
was that every package bore somebody’s 
name. 


332 



Deeds of Derring Do 

It was perfectly marvelous,, for in that 
Christmas box was just exactly what every 
single one in the family wanted most on earth. 
The minister himself could not have persuaded 
the little Lovedays that it wasn’t St. Nicho¬ 
las who had come in by sea instead of on 
his reindeer — and I’m not sure they weren’t 
right. 

All the same Jeannie has her suspicions that 
some rough sailor men from the crew of a cer¬ 
tain ocean tramp could have thrown some light 
on the subject had they wished. 


THE END 


V 


9 







































